标签： Africa

Three years into Sudan’s brutal civil conflict, more than 8,000 people remain unaccounted for, leaving their relatives trapped in a torturous limbo of not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirms these missing persons numbers, a devastating byproduct of a war that has ripped apart countless households across the nation. People have disappeared while fleeing violence, fallen victim to unrecorded combat deaths, or been secretly detained, leaving their families in perpetual psychological agony.

For Azaher Abdallah, that agony has stretched for more than a year. Her husband, 38-year-old Fahmy al-Fateh — a farmer and merchant who joined Sudan’s national army when the war broke out — left their home before sunrise in January last year. He called her on his way out, saying he would stop at the market before returning home after completing his assignment for the day. Al-Fateh was last seen riding a motorcycle away from a Khartoum military base, and he never came back. Today, the couple’s 3-year-old son runs screaming after every passing motorcycle, convinced his father has finally come home.

“He was the most precious thing in my life,” Abdallah said through sobs, hiding her face in her hands. “I would feel more at peace if I knew anything. It is better than this endless uncertainty, never knowing if he is alive or dead.” Abdallah has searched every hospital morgue across Khartoum, pleaded with army officials for information, and still keeps scrolling through old photos of her husband in uniform, refusing to abandon hope. “That is what my heart tells me — he will come home one day,” she said.

Psychological experts warn that this ambiguous loss inflicts long-term, profound harm on surviving family members. “Families of missing persons experience additional layers of vulnerabilities due to hostilities, displacement and the unresolvable grief of ambiguous loss,” explained Nathalie Nyamukeba, a psychologist working with the ICRC. The organization has managed to resolve just over 1,000 missing person cases to date, but has declined to share how many of those cases ended with confirmation of life or death.

Across Khartoum state, authorities believe many missing people now lie in unmarked graves scattered across the capital. When the army retook full control of Khartoum from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group last year, tens of thousands of hastily buried bodies were discovered across the city. During the height of combat, it was too dangerous to transport bodies to formal cemeteries, so residents buried their dead wherever they could: in neighborhood soccer fields, along road sides, beside abandoned gas stations, and even in front of family homes. During a recent reporting trip through Khartoum, Associated Press journalists encountered overflowing formal cemeteries and unmarked dirt mounds scattered across public spaces, many with no identifying information at all.

For Sulafa Mustafa, the search for her 18-year-old son Suleiman Abdalsid has stretched across two years. The shy teen left home to visit a friend on the outskirts of Khartoum and never returned. Even when artillery shelling echoed through city neighborhoods, Mustafa walked door to door, showed Suleiman’s photo to strangers, visited every hospital and prison, and even rented a public address microphone to call out his name through the streets. Like Abdallah, she has not given up. “I haven’t lost faith in finding you,” she said.

Locating and identifying missing people remains an enormous challenge amid the ongoing conflict. Most forensic DNA testing laboratories in Khartoum have been destroyed in fighting, and few specialist forensic personnel remain in the country. So far, Khartoum state authorities have relocated nearly 30,000 of the roughly 50,000 hastily buried bodies scattered across the capital to formal burial sites. Roughly 10% of these remains remain unidentified, according to Hisham Zienalabdien, director general of Khartoum’s forensic medicine department. His team is currently storing DNA samples from all unidentified bodies, in the hope that future technology and access will allow them to match remains to grieving relatives.

Even for families who have recovered their loved ones’ remains, the trauma of the conflict leaves permanent scars. Abubakar Alswai waited more than a year to move his 73-year-old brother Mohamed’s remains from a hasty grave in front of their family home to a formal public cemetery. Mohamed was killed by RSF fighters, who waited three weeks before allowing neighbors to bury his bullet-ridden, decomposing body. Under majority-Islamic Sudanese tradition, funerals are held as soon as possible, ideally within 24 hours of death. As gravediggers exhumed Mohamed’s remains to move him, Alswai wiped tears from his cheeks. At least now, he said, his brother will receive the dignified burial he deserves, and his family can find a small measure of peace. “What happened has left a permanent mark on my heart,” he said.

A wave of violent public unrest has broken out at the epicenter of an expanding Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), exposing deep rifts between public health authorities and local communities over the response to the deadly virus. The unrest erupted after an angry crowd set fire to a section of Rwampara General Hospital in Ituri province, where nearly all current Ebola cases have been recorded. The confrontation was sparked when medical teams blocked family members from retrieving the body of a 28-year-old local footballer for a traditional burial, after medics recorded his death as a confirmed Ebola fatality.

Witnesses and local officials report that protesters threw projectiles at hospital staff and set ablaze temporary tents that served as Ebola isolation wards. One healthcare worker was hit and injured by flying stones before law enforcement intervened to restore order, firing warning shots to disperse the crowd. Local politician Luc Malembe Malembe, who witnessed the chaos, confirmed that two isolation tents were completely destroyed, along with the young man’s body that had been held for safe burial. Initial reports that six Ebola patients being treated in the tents escaped during the unrest were later refuted by medical charity Alima, which operates the isolation site, confirming all patients are accounted for and continue to receive care at the hospital.

Misinformation and deep public distrust have been cited as core drivers of the violence. The victim’s mother publicly stated she believes her son died of typhoid fever, not Ebola, a sentiment shared by many in the local community. Jean Claude Mukendi, security coordinator for the Ebola response in Ituri, noted that the young man was a well-liked local figure, and many upset residents failed to understand the contagious nature of the virus. Malembe added that widespread lack of public education has fueled dangerous conspiracy theories across parts of eastern DRC: many people, particularly in remote, underserved areas, believe Ebola is a fabrication invented by outside non-governmental organizations and hospitals to profit from donor funding. As of the latest official reports, the outbreak has killed more than 130 people across the country, with official death tolls varying between 139 reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and 159 counted by Congolese health authorities, out of over 600 suspected total cases.

The unrest unfolded as the cross-border and regional spread of the virus accelerates, prompting growing international concern. The WHO has already designated the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, though it has not yet characterized the situation as a global pandemic. Two confirmed cases have already been detected in Uganda, DRC’s northern neighbor, prompting Ugandan authorities to shut down all cross-border public transport, including passenger ferries on the shared Semliki River border crossing, to slow transmission.

Compounding risks, the outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which no licensed vaccine is currently available. WHO officials estimate it could take up to nine months to develop and deploy a targeted vaccine for this specific strain. Just days after the hospital violence, M23 rebel forces that control large swathes of eastern DRC confirmed the first Ebola case in South Kivu province, hundreds of kilometers south of the current epicenter in Ituri. The infected patient, who had traveled to South Kivu from the unimpacted city of Kisangani in Tshopo province, died before a formal diagnosis could be confirmed. International observers warn that the spread of the virus into territory controlled by non-state actors creates major new challenges for outbreak response, as aid groups face barriers accessing at-risk communities in these regions. M23 has stated it is willing to collaborate with international health partners to contain the virus, but the group has never previously managed a large-scale public health emergency like an Ebola outbreak.

The crisis has already had ripple effects beyond the affected regions: DRC’s national men’s football team announced it would cancel its planned pre-World Cup training camp in Kinshasa directly due to the outbreak. Global health officials continue to stress the urgent need for expanded public outreach and education to counter misinformation that is undermining outbreak control efforts, particularly around critical safety measures such as the WHO-recommended safe and dignified burial protocol for Ebola victims, which requires trained teams to handle remains with full protective equipment to prevent new infections.

An escalating insurgent blockade targeting Mali’s capital Bamako has entered a more dangerous phase, with jihadist fighters aligned with al-Qaeda burning dozens of civilian and commercial vehicles on key arteries leading into the city, multiple verified sources confirm.

The destruction, which took place on a major roadway roughly 45 kilometers west of the capital, was captured on video by witnesses traveling through the area. Independent analysis by BBC Verify confirmed the footage was authentic: analysts cross-referenced two distinct roadside structures with recent satellite imagery to confirm the location, and ruled out artificial manipulation of the video. Complementary verification came from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), a satellite platform designed to detect surface heat sources, which recorded a significant heat signature matching the attack site on Tuesday.

Footage of the incident shows the charred, smoldering wreckage of more than a dozen vehicles, including commercial fuel tankers, passenger minibuses, and cargo trucks. Crucially, there have been no reports of civilian casualties in this latest attack: witnesses report militants ordered all drivers and passengers to exit their vehicles before setting them alight.

This attack is part of a broader, year-long campaign by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist group that has waged a fuel blockade on Bamako to cripple the West African nation’s ruling military junta. The group dramatically tightened the blockade last month, following coordinated large-scale attacks across multiple Malian cities that killed the country’s defense minister, Sadio Camara, in a suicide truck bombing targeting his residence near the capital.

As a landlocked nation, Mali relies entirely on overland fuel shipments from neighboring coastal states including Senegal and Ivory Coast to keep its economy running and civilian services operational. Since the blockade began last year, JNIM militants have kidnapped transport workers and destroyed more than 100 fuel trucks on major national highways. While military escorts have allowed a limited number of fuel convoys to reach the capital, persistent attacks have created a sustained national fuel crisis. Just before this latest incident, government officials had signaled the crisis was beginning to ease, raising hopes for a return to normalcy.

The current Malian government is led by General Assimi Goïta, who first seized power in a 2020 coup. Goïta rose to power on a promise to stamp out the country’s years-long Islamist insurgency and restore security across national territory. In January of this year, he appointed Brigadier General Famouké Camara to lead a new specialized counter-blockade operation aimed at breaking JNIM’s grip on key supply routes. Despite this new initiative, attacks on fuel convoys have continued unabated.

When the military junta first took power five years ago, it enjoyed broad popular support from Malians frustrated by the government’s failure to contain a growing insurgency that grew out of a 2012 Tuareg separatist rebellion in northern Mali, which was later co-opted by JNIM and other Islamist militant groups. Despite receiving military backing from Russian mercenary forces, the junta has failed to roll back insurgent gains, leaving large swathes of northern and eastern Mali effectively ungovernable.

Security analysts say the blockade is a deliberate strategic move by JNIM: by cutting off fuel supplies to the capital, the group aims to choke off Mali’s already fragile economy and erode public confidence in the ruling military leadership, whose core mandate has been resolving the country’s security crisis. The BBC has reached out to Mali’s transitional government for official comment on the latest attack, but has not yet received a response.

In a landmark blow against international organized crime, Nigeria’s premier anti-narcotics enforcement body announced the dismantling of a cross-border drug syndicate with links to both Nigerian and Mexican criminal networks operating in the country’s southwest. The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) revealed Wednesday evening that its specialized tactical operations team successfully neutralized an industrial-scale secret drug production facility hidden within a remote forest region of Ijebu, located in Ogun State. Ogun State shares a direct border with Lagos, Nigeria’s economic and commercial hub, making the syndicate’s proximity to a major population and transportation center a particularly alarming threat.

NDLEA officials confirmed that this operation marks the largest single drug interdiction in Nigeria’s recorded history. During the targeted raid, enforcement officers apprehended seven core members of the cartel: four Nigerian citizens and three Mexican nationals. Three additional suspects linked to the network were taken into custody in subsequent sweep operations carried out in the days following the initial raid.

Brigadier General Mohamed Buba Marwa, director-general of NDLEA, emphasized that the criminal network posed an unprecedented danger to Nigeria beyond simple drug trafficking. “This network did not just traffic drugs; they were actively manufacturing industrial-scale quantities of highly lethal illicit substances right on our soil, threatening the national security and public health of Nigeria,” Marwa stated in the agency’s official announcement.

Authorities confirmed that the operation yielded a massive haul of contraband: more than 2.4 tons of drug chemicals and finished methamphetamine, with an estimated street value of 480 billion naira, equivalent to roughly $363 million. Two vehicles used by the syndicate to transport materials and finished product were also seized as evidence.

The takedown aligns with longstanding warnings from global drug control bodies about growing criminal activity in West and Central Africa. For years, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has highlighted that the region has become a global hotspot for both illicit drug production and transnational trafficking, driven largely by weak border security, widespread porous border crossings, and systemic corruption that allows criminal networks to operate with relative impunity.