Migration from Africa: No wonder they still try
Posted: May 29, 2014 Filed under: Mali, The Sahel | Tags: Agadez, Algeria, asylum, asylum seekers, Burkina Faso, EU, Europe, Gao, human trafficking, informal networks, Italy, Lampedusa, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, narcoticx, Niger, smuggling, Tamanrasset, trafficking, Tripoli Leave a commentWhy so many Africans still risk their lives to reach Europe
“GET free or die trying,” runs a graffito in English on the wall of a migrants’ detention centre on the outskirts of Tripoli, Libya’s capital. The author was one of the countless migrants to pass through the fetid, overcrowded facility, his fate unknown.
Some of the people herded into more than 20 such centres across Libya were intercepted by Libyan naval vessels as they attempted the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. Others were arrested before reaching the sea by Libyan militias that have held sway since the revolution that toppled Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
African migrants going to Europe: Taking their chances
Posted: May 15, 2014 Filed under: Mali, The Sahel | Tags: Agadez, Algeria, drugs, EU, Europe, Gao, illegal migrants, insecurity, Lampedusa, Mali, migrants, Niger, Sahara, Sahel, Tamanrasset, trafficking Leave a commentA new report looks into the ever more busy migration routes from Africa to Europe
FOLLOWING the recent sweep of revolutions in North Africa, the corpses of migrants have washed up with increasing regularity on the region’s shores. This month alone 58 perished, with another 54 missing, following shipwrecks off the coasts of Libya and Greece. Weakened states are less able to police borders, allowing thousands to reach the European mainland. In April, Italian vessels rescued over 4,000 migrants in two days, prompting beleaguered authorities to declare a humanitarian emergency. By some estimates, more than 600,000 people from Africa and the Middle East are currently waiting on north Africa’s shores to embark for a better life.
Morocco’s role in Africa: Making more of it
Posted: February 25, 2014 Filed under: Mali | Tags: Algeria, Attijariwafa Bank, diplomacy, Guinea, IBK, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Islam, Libya, Mali, Maroc Telecom, Morocco, Muhammad VI, Polisario, soft power, Tunisia, Western Sahara Leave a comment
Morocco is vying with Algeria for more influence in the region
KING Muhammad VI of Morocco’s trip to Mali could not have gone better. Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Mali’s president, and his entire cabinet were waiting on the tarmac to welcome the monarch off his jet on February 18th. When the king bestowed Morocco’s highest honour on Mr Keita, he promptly renamed a boulevard in Bamako after him (Muhammad’s name is emblazoned on a red and green billboard). Over five days of pomp, pageantry and public displays of affection, Muhammad signed 18 agreements, covering microfinance to defence and energy. He is hoping to do the same in Ivory Coast, Guinea and Gabon, the remaining stops on his tour. Read the rest of this entry »
Destroying Timbuktu: The Jihadist who Inspires the Demolition of the Shrines
Posted: July 10, 2012 Filed under: Mali | Tags: al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Algeria, Ansar Eddine, AQIM, hostages, Iyad Ag Ghali, Libya, Mali, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Omar Hamaha, Oumar Ould Hamaha, ransom, SAM 7A, Timbuktu Leave a comment
This TV grab shows Omar Hamaha, military chief of the Islamist group Ansar Eddine, gesturing on April 3, 2012 in Timbuktu. AFP / GETTY IMAGES
The charismatic military leader of Salafist rebels in Mali may just be helping to found an Islamic caliphate but he is also taking apart an ancient city’s heritage.
Oumar Ould Hamaha is a one-man whirlwind of piety and fury. For more than a decade he has — by his own account and others — raided government outposts in Mauritania, Algeria and Niger; held Western hostages for extravagant ransoms; and proselytized a ferocious asceticism over the barrel of a gun. Riding with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, he has crisscrossed the shadowless Sahara in the service of a god he envisions as unforgiving as the desert itself. He has invoked Koranic verses to protect himself from the “evil work of devils” and “the biting of snakes and scorpions,” learned to navigate by the sun, moon and stars, and believes that meteor showers are battles between djinns and angels. It has been a ferocious transformation for a former student of accounting. Read the rest of this entry »
julius cavendish 