标签： Africa

In a stunning development that has deepened the security crisis across conflict-wracked Mali, Malian authorities confirmed late Friday that active and recently dismissed military officers colluded with jihadi and separatist insurgents to carry out the largest coordinated offensive the country has seen in more than 10 years. This wave of attacks has already forced government and allied Russian forces to retreat from strategic territory and claimed the life of the nation’s defense minister.

The string of unprecedented assaults, which opened with near-simultaneous strikes targeting multiple population centers including Bamako’s main international airport, was launched earlier this month through a rare partnership between Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaida-affiliated jihadi group, and the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a separatist movement fighting for northern Mali’s independence. Fighters carried out the raids using motorcycles and heavy trucks, striking at least 10 separate locations across the country in coordinated action.

By the start of this week, the offensive delivered a major blow to Mali’s ruling military junta, which seized power in a 2020 coup: insurgents seized control of Kidal, a major northern city, in the retreat that followed the attacks. The violence also killed Malian Defense Minister Sadio Camara, marking one of the highest-profile casualties of the Sahel’s long-running extremist conflict.

On Friday, separatist commander Achafghi Ag Bouhanda announced in a verified online video that FLA fighters had captured another critical strategic site: the military camp in Tessalit, a northern town located near the Algerian border and adjacent to a key regional airport. The announcement came after Malian army troops and fighters from Russia’s Africa Corps withdrew from the camp ahead of the separatist advance. The Associated Press has not been able to independently verify conditions on the ground at the camp, and Malian officials have not yet issued an official response to requests for comment on the fall of Tessalit.

The most shocking revelation of the unfolding crisis came via an official statement read on Malian state television from the public prosecutor of Bamako’s Military Court. Investigations into the coordinated attacks have uncovered “solid evidence regarding the complicity of certain military personnel” – including both currently serving and recently discharged officers – in the assault, the prosecutor confirmed. The statement added that these officers directly participated in “the planning, coordination, and execution” of the attacks, and also named exiled prominent opposition politician Oumar Mariko as a co-conspirator in the plot.

The collapse of government control across swathes of northern Mali comes as the capital Bamako faces mounting pressure from insurgent blockades. JNIM this week announced a full blockade of all four major road arteries leading into Bamako, expanding on a partial fuel and supply blockade that militants imposed on the city late last year. Traffic into the capital was severely disrupted on Friday, with multiple confirmed militant roadblocks along major routes. The persistent instability and blockades have already forced multiple travel agencies to suspend operations, leaving residents facing dangerous and restricted travel across the country. “These days, traveling by road is a dangerous undertaking,” said Aminata Traoré, a frequent traveler between Bamako and the southern Sikasso region.

Mali’s junta leader Assimi Goita has pledged to press forward with counteroffensives to retake lost territory. “Military operations will continue until the armed groups involved have been completely neutralized and security has been sustainably restored throughout the country,” Goita said earlier this week. The Sahel region, a vast expanse of land south of the Sahara Desert spanning multiple West African nations, has become the global epicenter of violent extremist activity in recent years, with jihadi groups expanding their control across remote border areas as national governments struggle to contain the insurgency.

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – A landmark Chinese trade policy that grants duty-free market access to Africa’s largest economies for a two-year period officially entered into force on Friday, launching at a moment of stark contrast with the United States’ ongoing push for protectionist trade measures under former President Donald Trump.

The new tariff exemption framework covers the 20 biggest economies across the African continent, including regional powerhouses South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Kenya. Prior to this update, China had already eliminated import tariffs for 33 low-income African nations, bringing the total number of African countries eligible for full tariff-free treatment for their exports to 53 out of the continent’s 54 sovereign states. The sole exception is the small southern African kingdom of Eswatini, which remains the only African country to maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as part of its own territory.

Chinese authorities frame the policy as a concrete step toward shared bilateral growth. The Customs Tariff Commission of China’s State Council emphasized that the initiative will advance mutually beneficial development between China and African trading partners. According to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, the first shipment to benefit from the new rules cleared customs in the southern Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen in the early hours of Friday: a 24-metric-ton consignment of fresh apples sourced from South African orchards.

China’s Ministry of Commerce noted that the policy will deliver particular gains for high-demand African agricultural exports that previously faced import duties ranging from 8% to 30%. These include cocoa from top global producers Ivory Coast and Ghana, coffee and avocados from Kenya, and citrus fruits and wine from South Africa. Combined, Ivory Coast and Ghana control more than half of the world’s total cocoa supply, while South Africa ranks as one of the world’s top exporters of citrus produce.

The policy rollout comes as many leading African economies have been actively diversifying their export markets away from the U.S., after the Trump administration implemented steep reciprocal tariffs on African goods roughly a year ago. At the height of those measures, South Africa, Africa’s most industrialized economy, faced tariffs as high as 30%, while some other African nations saw rates exceed 40%.

“South Africa looks forward to working with China in a friendly, pragmatic and flexible manner,” South African Trade Minister Parks Tau stated during bilateral trade talks held in Beijing this past February. Though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Trump’s broad global tariffs unconstitutional and struck them down in the same month, the former president quickly announced that his administration held “very powerful alternatives” and immediately enacted new temporary import taxes to replace the invalidated measures.

Today, China already holds the position of Africa’s largest single trade partner, at a time when the continent’s demographic footprint is expanding rapidly: the United Nations projects Africa’s current population of 1.5 billion will nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050, accounting for more than a quarter of the global population at that time.

Despite Beijing’s framing of the deal as a win-win for development, analysts point to persistent structural imbalances in the China-Africa trade relationship, alongside billions of dollars in outstanding African sovereign debt owed to Beijing. In 2025, total bilateral trade hit a record high of $348 billion. However, Chinese exports to Africa grew roughly 25% to reach $225 billion over the period, while African exports to China rose only around 5% to $123 billion, widening the existing trade deficit for African nations.

For decades, the core of the trade relationship has centered on China importing raw materials from Africa and exporting finished manufactured goods back to the continent. Thierry Pairault, a leading China-Africa researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research, points out that most African raw material exports – including crude oil and industrial minerals – already enjoyed tariff-free access to Chinese markets before the new policy. While Pairault acknowledges the policy will deliver modest benefits for African agricultural exporters, he argues its broader geopolitical purpose is deliberate.

“Xi Jinping is positioning China as the antithesis of Western protectionism. This gesture is intended to appeal to both African public opinion and global markets,” Pairault explained in an analysis published by the China Global South Project, a research initiative focused on China’s engagement with low and middle-income nations. Even so, he added, the policy “only applies where it costs China almost nothing.”

The United States has announced wide-ranging sanctions against former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila, leveling serious accusations that the long-time former leader has provided direct support to the M23 rebel group active in eastern DRC.

According to U.S. officials, Kabila has delivered critical financial backing to the insurgent group, encouraged defections from the official Congolese national army, and even plotted to launch coordinated attacks against Congolese military forces from his base outside the country. The 54-year-old ex-president, who held the DRC’s highest office for 18 years starting in 2001, has not issued any public response after the BBC reached out for comment on the new sanctions. Kabila’s current location remains unconfirmed publicly, though he entered self-imposed exile in South Africa in 2023; he was last spotted publicly one year ago in Goma, a major eastern DRC city that is currently controlled by M23 forces.

This latest punitive action by Washington is framed as a key component of its broader efforts to uphold the 2024 peace deal between DRC and neighboring Rwanda that the U.S. helped broker. The U.S. has long alleged that Rwanda provides military and logistical support to M23, a claim that Kigali has repeatedly denied despite overwhelming independent evidence to the contrary. Rwandan officials maintain that any military presence they have in the border region is strictly a defensive measure to counter cross-border security threats from armed groups based in eastern DRC. Washington previously sanctioned top Rwandan army commanders over their ties to M23 back in March 2025.

In its official statement announcing the sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department claims Kabila’s ultimate goal is to destabilize the current DRC government based in Kinshasa, clearing the way for an allied opposition candidate to seize power and restore his political control over the country. Under the newly imposed measures, all assets owned by Kabila that fall under U.S. jurisdiction are immediately frozen, and any U.S. citizen or registered company is prohibited from conducting financial or commercial activity with the former president. Global financial institutions and foreign business partners have also received formal warnings against engaging in even indirect transactions with Kabila, with violations carrying severe civil and criminal penalties. U.S. officials note the sanctions serve both as a punitive measure and a tool to force a change in Kabila’s behavior, sending a clear signal that Washington is prepared to target even former heads of state accused of fueling deadly conflict in central Africa.

Eastern DRC has been plagued by persistent armed conflict for decades, with dozens of competing armed groups vying for control of the region’s resource-rich territory. M23 launched major offensive operations in early 2025, seizing large swathes of land and multiple major population centers in the area. Beyond advancing regional peace and security goals, the U.S. says the new sanctions against Kabila will also strengthen a recent regional economic agreement focused on improving transparency in global critical mineral supply chains. Last December, the U.S. and DRC formalized a bilateral partnership to expand U.S. access to DRC’s massive reserves of strategically critical minerals, including cobalt, coltan, and copper, all of which are core inputs for global clean energy and electronics manufacturing.

The punitive actions against Kabila are not limited to international sanctions: last September, a Congolese military court sentenced the former leader to death in absentia after convicting him of war crimes and treason tied to his alleged support for M23. Kabila rejected the charges as politically motivated and arbitrary, and refused to appear in court to mount a defense against the accusations.

A crowded vessel carrying 33 Sudanese migrants has capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tobruk, a coastal town in eastern Libya, leaving at least 17 passengers dead and nine others unaccounted for, United Nations officials confirmed in a statement released Thursday. Just seven people on board the ill-fated craft survived the disaster, the U.N. Refugee Agency shared via its social media platform X. Authorities have not yet released a definitive timeline for when the overturning occurred.

According to the U.N. International Organization for Migration (IOM), the survivors had been stranded adrift in open waters for multiple days before they were pulled from the sea, and a number of the fatalities were caused by starvation and dehydration in the days before the rescue. The boat departed Tobruk and was bound for Greece when it overturned roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of the Libyan city, the organization confirmed. Local rescue efforts were led by Libya’s national navy, the country’s coast guard, and the Libyan Red Crescent.

On Thursday, the Libyan Red Crescent published on-site photos from the rescue operation that showed emergency personnel moving multiple deceased victims sealed in black body bags. Medical details on the condition of the seven survivors have not been released to the public as of Thursday’s update.

For more than a decade, Libya has served as a primary departure and transit hub for thousands of migrants fleeing conflict, political instability, and extreme poverty across Africa and the Middle East. The nation descended into ongoing factional chaos following the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that removed and killed long-time authoritarian ruler Moammar Gadhafi, leaving central government weak and unable to regulate unregulated migrant smuggling operations along its long Mediterranean coastline.

This latest tragedy comes less than two weeks after another deadly shipwreck off Libya’s coast: earlier this month, more than 80 migrants were reported missing after their vessel capsized in the central Mediterranean. Data from IOM shows that 2026 is on track to be the deadliest year for Mediterranean migrant crossings since record-keeping began in 2014. In the first four months of the year, 765 people were confirmed dead along the dangerous Central Mediterranean route alone — a 150% jump in fatalities compared to the same period in 2025. IOM Director General Amy Pope told the Associated Press earlier this month that the agency has recorded a sharp rise in migrants from South Asia and the Horn of Africa — including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sudan — attempting the dangerous crossing to European shores in recent months.

For over a decade, Mali’s national military has waged a persistent, bloody conflict against Islamist insurgent groups across the West African nation. Now, that conflict has tightened its grip on the heart of the country: Bamako, the bustling capital and key regional hub home to more than 3 million residents, is currently under a rolling partial blockade by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), one of the country’s most active Islamist militant factions. The blockade comes just days after a high-profile assassination of Mali’s defense minister within the city’s borders, deepening the sense of crisis gripping the nation.

Stranded motorists and travelers on the Bamako-Kéniéba highway, one of the capital’s primary arterial routes, have described days of uncertainty and fear. One mother of two, who traveled outside the city to visit aging parents, told the BBC she has been barred from re-entering Bamako for nearly 24 hours. “Our army isn’t capable of protecting us, how are we going to get back home?” she asked, echoing the anxiety shared by hundreds of other stranded people along major inbound routes. JNIM fighters issued an explicit public warning Wednesday that “no-one will be allowed in any more” to the capital, a sharp escalation of tactics the group has used to pressure the ruling military junta.

This tightening blockade marks a significant escalation from the group’s 2025 fuel blockade, which crippled supply chains, caused widespread fuel shortages, and sent prices for essential goods soaring across Bamako. Today, eyewitnesses confirm that at least three of the six main access roads leading into the capital are closed for hours at a time, as militants rotate positions across different routes to avoid counterattacks. During gaps between militant presence, small numbers of civilian vehicles are able to sneak through, but movement remains severely restricted and unpredictable.

The current crisis follows a coordinated nationwide offensive launched last weekend by a newly formed alliance of jihadist fighters and separatist rebels from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), whose stated goal is to overthrow the military regime led by General Assimi Goïta. Goïta seized control of Mali in a 2020 coup and has since shifted the country’s foreign security alliances dramatically, expelling French counterterrorism forces that had supported the government for nearly a decade and turning instead to the Russia-aligned Africa Corps, a paramilitary force that emerged from the remnants of the Wagner Group following the death of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Despite this new partnership, the insurgent offensive has already scored major gains. The FLA alliance forced African Corps and Malian government troops to withdraw from the key northern city of Kidal, which is now fully under separatist control. Following the capture of Kidal, FLA leaders have announced plans to advance on other northern population centers and issued an ultimatum demanding the full withdrawal of all Africa Corps forces from Malian territory.

The Kremlin has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining a presence in the country. “Russian forces will remain in Mali to combat extremism, terrorism and other harmful phenomena and will continue to provide assistance to the current government,” a Kremlin spokesperson stated Thursday, pushing back against claims that the withdrawal from Kidal signals weakening Russian commitment to the junta.

For ordinary civilians caught in the crossfire, the situation has grown increasingly desperate. A long-haul lorry driver who has worked Malian trade routes for decades told the BBC he had never experienced a crisis of this scale. “I’m stuck here and it sounds dangerous. I would rather run away to save my life than fight for the goods I have to deliver. I’ve never thought like this before,” he said. Just 50 miles from Bamako, the regional town of Ségou is already under a full insurgent blockade, where hundreds of commercial trucks, passenger buses, and private cars have been trapped for days. A local reporter confirmed that stranded passengers, including whole families and small-scale traders, are already facing critical shortages of clean drinking water and food.

Mali’s junta leadership has responded with vows of harsh retribution. Following an emergency meeting of the country’s security council Wednesday, state media quoted Goïta saying that Malian armed and security forces have already inflicted “heavy losses” on insurgent forces and would continue to ramp up counteroffensives to restore order.

Independent security analysts warn that the current offensive exposes deep vulnerabilities in the junta’s grip on power. “Those moves show that the regime is weak and can’t restore security,” explained Alain Antil, director of the Sub-Saharan Africa Centre at Ifri, a leading French foreign affairs think tank. Antil noted that the current trajectory echoes 2013, when a similar alliance of jihadists and Tuareg separatists advanced on Bamako, prompting a large-scale French military intervention that pushed insurgents back but failed to fully resolve the country’s instability. Despite Goïta’s decision to oust French forces and align with Russia, the security situation has continued to deteriorate, culminating in last weekend’s coordinated offensive.

International governments have already begun issuing warnings to their citizens. France, Canada, and the United Kingdom have all issued formal advisories urging their nationals to leave Mali immediately, while the United States recommends that all U.S. citizens in the country stay in secure locations and avoid non-essential travel. Even amid the warnings, some long-term foreign residents have refused to flee, pointing to deep personal ties to the country. “I won’t leave,” one Frenchwoman who has lived in Mali since 2002 told the BBC. “I love Mali. It has become a part of me since I came here in 2002. We’ll stay with my family. We know things will be OK.”