This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program.

The implosion of Mali and the recent abduction of a French family in Cameroon have brought heightened attention to the culture of kidnapping and trafficking in the western Sahel. Read more »

South Africans often assume that since the end of apartheid, and the coming of democracy in 1994, there has been a huge wave of migration into South Africa from the rest of the continent. Stories abound of entire Johannesburg neighborhoods that are now Nigerian or Congolese–and that immigrants have taken over certain crime syndicates. There have been xenophobic riots against Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa who, with the benefit of higher education standards in their home country, are seen by township dwellers as competition for scarce jobs. Read more »

With attention focused on radical Islamists, a dysfunctional government in Bamako, and the French military intervention, it is easy to overlook that for most Malians, to stay alive is, in itself, often a struggle. To cite a few illustrative statistics from the CIA World FactBook, the country’s birthrate and infant mortality rate are the second highest in the world. Infant mortality exceeds 10 percent. Life expectancy at birth is among the shortest in the world. More than 10 percent of the population is nomadic; in the north, that percentage is far higher. With climate change and the Sahara desert creeping ever southward, life for rural and nomadic populations in the north is getting worse; even at the best of times. Drought is now a common reality. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, citing Malian statistics, about a quarter of the population faces severe food insecurity. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has appealed to international donors for U.S.$214 million for Mali; it has received U.S.$76.3 million. Read more »

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers.

Returning from an early autumn vacation in Acadia National Park last year, we exited I-95 near Waterville, Maine to grab a Starbucks coffee at a nearby mall. Seeking a second opinion on my theory that the Subaru station-wagon was the state car of Maine, I approached a total stranger who was climbing out of his Toyota Prius. After affirming that, in fact, he had owned one himself, the man identified himself as Dr. David Austin, a local physician. He also mentioned his upcoming tour in Djibouti, as a Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontiers, or MSF) physician, and explained that he had previously served in Sudan (Darfur) and Congo. Read more »

One of the major unresolved issues from South Sudan’s split from Khartoum has been the citizenship status of Sudanese of southern origin living in the north, and those of northern origin living in the south. Optimists had hoped that the citizenship issue would be amicably resolved and that most people involved would stay in place. Read more »