France has suffered another geopolitical setback in Africa. On December 2, Burkina Faso and Niger announced their withdrawal from all G5 Sahel bodies, an institutional framework initiated by the leaders of Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad in 2014 and finally formed in 2017. On December 6, the Presidents of Mauritania and Chad also announced their withdrawal from the organization. Among the reasons for withdrawing from the alliance cited by the military leaders of the first two countries was the organization’s inability to effectively solve not only economic…

Immediately after the death of Chadian President Idriss Déby, who died in April 2021 from wounds sustained in fighting with rebels in the north of the country, the military announced the dissolution of parliament and government and the establishment of a Transitional Military Council headed by his son, thirty-seven-year-old General Mahamat Idriss Déby. In doing so, the military ignored the constitutional provision that upon the death of the head of state, the presidency is temporarily transferred to the president of the National Assembly, who within 90 days must hold…

After months of tensions and hostile statements from both sides, the rivalry between the Sudanese army, led by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the chairman of the Sudanese Sovereign Council serving as president, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group led by his former deputy on the Sovereign Council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (alias Hemedti), erupted into open armed clashes on 15 April this year. At the heart of the current crisis, notes the Arab Centre for Policy Studies in Qatar, is the ongoing struggle between the two aforementioned…

Minutes after the news that Ali Bongo Ondimba had once again won the presidential election in the Gabonese capital, Libreville, on 30 August this year, a group of military officers announced onGabon 24 television channel that he had been removed from power, the results of the election annulled, the Government dissolved, the borders closed and a Committee for the Transition and Restoration of State Authority established. The committee, which was headed by the Commander of the Republican Guard, General Brice Oligui Nguema, comprised members of the regular army, the Republican Guard and other security forces…

Notwithstanding that three months have already passed after overthrowing of President Mohamed Bazoum in Niger and coming into power of military servicemen headed by the Commander of the Republican Guard General Abdourahamane Tchiani, the development of the situation in this country still is in the focus of close attention. And it is connected, in the first turn, with the contradictions that arose between the two main external players – France and its senior partner, the USA, with regard to the ways and means of resolving this crisis.  The fact is that, of all the Western countries…

On 10 September, unprecedented Storm Daniel struck the eastern coast of Libya, producing waves as high as a two-story house, which overwhelmed two dams and, sweeping away houses, bridges, cars and people in its path, flooded the city of Derna with a population of 100,000 people. According to experts, such downpours only happen once every 100 years. As of 11 October 4,333 people were reported dead and approximately 8,000 others missing. 70 per cent of civilian infrastructure was destroyed, including 95 per cent of educational institutions. 42 thousand residents of this region were displaced after losing their homes. In total, this flood caused more than two billion dollars in damage…

On 26 July 2023, senior members of Niger’s presidential guard, normally tasked with protecting President Mohamed Bazoum, announced that they had ousted him from power, holding him hostage inside his official residence. Subsequently, on 28 July, General Abdourahamane Tiani, the commander of the presidential guard, declared himself the head of the military-run National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, and the former chief of army staff, General Salifou Mody, who was dismissed by President Bazoum in March, was appointed his deputy…