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is the chief Africa correspondent for The Times based in Nairobi, Kenya. He previously reported from Cairo, covering the Middle East, and Islamabad, Pakistan.

Organizations: The Times Locations: Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, Cairo, Islamabad, Pakistan

is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies.

Persons: Trump Organizations: The Times

A Kenyan court on Friday prohibited the deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti, jeopardizing a multinational security force charged with stabilizing the chaos-hit Caribbean island nation before it even got off the ground. The force, which is backed by the United Nations and financed by the United States, had been stalled since October, when Kenyan opponents of the mission challenged it in court, calling it unconstitutional. “An order is issued prohibiting the deployment of Kenyan police officers to Haiti or any other country,” Justice Chacha Mwita said at the conclusion of a judgment that took 40 minutes to read. The international force was meant to help break the grip of the armed gangs that control most of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and have turned Haiti into one of the world’s most dangerous nations. Haiti’s government has pleaded for foreign military forces to be sent in to restore order, but the United States and Canada have been unwilling to commit their own troops.

Persons: Chacha Mwita Organizations: Kenyan, United Nations Locations: Haiti, jeopardizing, United States, Port, Canada

The twin specters of a widening regional war and intensified suffering of civilians loomed over the Middle East on Saturday as the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen threatened to respond to American airstrikes, and a senior U.N. official warned of a “horrific” humanitarian crisis in Gaza that he said was hurtling toward famine. An American missile strike, launched from a warship in the Red Sea, hit a radar station outside the Yemeni capital, Sana, early on Saturday. The solitary strike came about 24 hours after U.S.-led strikes against nearly 30 sites in northern and western Yemen that were intended to deter Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Houthi officials tried to brush off the latest assault, saying it would have little impact on their ability to attack vessels in the Red Sea. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, say their goal is to punish Israel for blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza — though Yemeni analysts say the crisis also presents the Houthis with a welcome distraction from rising criticism at home.

Persons: Israel Locations: Iran, Yemen, Gaza, American, Red, Sana

Bodies littered the road out of El Geneina, a town in western Sudan, as Dr. Rodwan Mustafa and his family sped down a bumpy road that led to the border with Chad and, they hoped, safety. A day earlier, rampaging Arab militiamen had grabbed Dr. Mustafa by the neck, accusing him of giving medical care to enemy fighters. Racing toward the border with his family in a car, he saw chickens clucking over the bloodied corpses of those who hadn’t fled in time. A camp for displaced people stood empty, burned to the ground. “The smell of death was everywhere,” said Dr. Mustafa, who made it to a refugee camp in Chad and spoke by phone from there.

Persons: Rodwan Mustafa, Mustafa, hadn’t, ” Locations: El, Sudan, Chad

☆ As Bombs Fall in Gaza, History Hangs Over a Family Fighting to Survive
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Declan Walsh | More About Declan Walsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

An Israeli airstrike had crushed an apartment block in the Jabaliya refugee camp, in northern Gaza, killing 45 members of his extended family. Mr. Abujayyab and his siblings argued about her next move: Stay at her grandmother’s apartment? Mr. Azmi, the Crisis Group researcher, had moved his family to a friend’s house in southern Gaza. It fractured his skull and crushed his chest, Mr. Azmi said by phone. They had no power, limited internet and more bombs were falling, his sister said in a voice message to her family.

Persons: Nathan Thrall, “, Abed Salama, ”, —, Abujayyab, Mr, welling, Azmi, Azmi Keshawi, Abujayyab’s, Nurit Cooper, Yocheved Lifshitz, Nir Oz Organizations: Crisis Group, Ministry Locations: Israel, Gaza, Gaza . Credit, Egypt

African leaders allied with Russia had grown used to dealing with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the swaggering, profane mercenary leader who traveled the continent by private jet, offering to prop up shaky regimes with guns and propaganda in return for gold and diamonds. But the Russian delegation that toured three African countries last week was led by a very different figure, the starchy deputy defense minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov. Dressed in a khaki uniform and a “telnyashka” — the horizontally-striped undergarment of Russian armed forces — he signaled conformity and restraint, giving assurances wrapped in polite language. “We will do our best to help you,” he said at a news conference in Burkina Faso. The contrast with the flamboyant Mr. Prigozhin could not have been sharper, and it aligned with the message the Kremlin was delivering: After Mr. Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash last month, Russia’s operations in Africa were coming under new management.

Persons: Yevgeny V, Yunus, bek Yevkurov, —, ”, Prigozhin, Prigozhin’s Locations: Russia, Burkina Faso, Africa

As the all-powerful ruler of oil-rich Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba had two passions, music and forests, that forged powerful ties across the world. An accomplished musician, Mr. Bongo recorded a disco-funk album and lured James Brown and Michael Jackson to Gabon. As president, he built a music studio at his seaside palace and played improv jazz to foreign diplomats at state dinners. More recently, Mr. Bongo allied with Western scientists and conservationists, entranced by both the paradisiacal beauty of Gabon, an Arizona-sized country covered in lush rainforest and teeming with wildlife, and by his commitment to protecting it. But to his own people, Mr. Bongo, 64, embodied a family dynasty, founded by his father, which had dominated Gabon for 56 years — until this week, when it came crashing down.

Persons: Ali Bongo Ondimba, Bongo, James Brown, Michael Jackson, . Bongo Locations: Gabon, an Arizona

☆ Gabon Military Officers Say They Are Seizing Power
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Declan Walsh | More About Declan Walsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A group of senior military officers appeared on television in the oil-rich Central African nation of Gabon early Wednesday and announced they were seizing power, hours after the incumbent president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was declared to have won a third term in office. There was no immediate reaction from Mr. Bongo or the government. Bursts of gunfire could be heard in the capital, Libreville, shortly after the broadcast ended, Reuters reported. “We have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime,” one of the officers said on the Gabon 24 station. If it succeeds, the coup would be the latest in an extraordinary run of military takeovers in Western and Central Africa — at least nine in the past three years, including one in Niger last month.

Persons: Ali Bongo Ondimba, Bongo Organizations: Reuters, Central Africa — Locations: Gabon, Libreville, Western, Central, Niger

When mutinous soldiers seized power in the West African nation of Burkina Faso early last year, the president of neighboring Niger struck a dismissive note. “This is nonsense,” President Mohamed Bazoum told two Western diplomats who sat in his office as news of the coup came through. How cynical was it, Mr. Bazoum remarked, that the soldiers responsible for securing Burkina Faso had overthrown the government in the name of restoring security. Now Mr. Bazoum faces the same fate. Mr. Bazoum’s Western and African allies are trying to negotiate his release, and West African army chiefs on Friday were set to finalize a possible military intervention in Niger.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Bazoum, Burkina Faso, Bazoum’s Organizations: Burkina, West Locations: West African, Burkina Faso, Niger

The military takeover in Niger has upended years of Western counterterrorism efforts in West Africa and now poses wrenching new challenges for the Biden administration’s fight against Islamist militants on the continent. American-led efforts to degrade terrorist networks around the world have largely succeeded in longtime jihadist hot spots like Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Not so in Africa, especially in the Sahel, the vast, semiarid region south of the Sahara where groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are gaining ground at an alarming pace. Niger, an impoverished nation of 25 million people that is nearly twice the size of Texas, has recently been the exception to that trend. Niger has slowed, but not stopped, a wave of extremists pushing south to coastal states.

Persons: Biden, Mohamed Bazoum Organizations: Islamic, Nigerien Locations: Niger, West Africa, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Africa, Sahel, Al Qaeda, Texas

Two western African states said that they would join forces to defend Niger, where soldiers claimed to have seized power in a coup last week, if a major regional bloc carried through on a threat to intervene militarily unless the ousted president is returned to office. The joint statement late Monday by the two states, Mali and Burkina Faso, was a stinging rebuke to the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS. On Sunday, the bloc vowed to take “all measures necessary,” including possible military action, to force the reinstatement of Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum. Mali and Burkina Faso, themselves ruled by military governments that took power in coups, said that any move against Niger would be considered a “declaration of war” against their own countries. It also raised the prospect that the crisis in Niger, where about 2,600 American and French troops are stationed, could spread into a wider regional conflict.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum Organizations: Economic, West Locations: Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, West African States

☆ West African Nations Threaten Military Action Unless Niger Coup Is Undone
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-30 | by ( Declan Walsh | More About Declan Walsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

West African leaders on Sunday threatened military action against Niger, where soldiers seized power in a coup on Wednesday, unless the country’s democratically elected president is restored to office within a week. The demand was issued by the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, a 15-member regional bloc, after a crisis summit meeting in Nigeria. It echoed earlier calls by the United States and France, major security allies of Niger, threatening to cut aid and military ties unless the deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, is restored. After coup supporters massed on Sunday outside the French Embassy in the capital, Niamey, calling for the withdrawal of French troops, President Emmanuel Macron issued a stiffly worded warning. Any attack on France’s citizens or interests in Niger will be met with an “immediate and uncompromising” reaction, Mr. Macron said in a statement.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Emmanuel Macron, Macron, Bazoum Organizations: Sunday, Economic, West, Embassy Locations: Niger, West African States, Nigeria, United States, France, Niamey

☆ Coast to Coast, a Corridor of Coups Brings Turmoil in Africa
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-29 | by ( Declan Walsh | More About Declan Walsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Africa’s coup belt spans the continent: a line of six countries crossing 3,500 miles, from coast to coast, that has become the longest corridor of military rule on Earth. This past week’s military takeover in the West African nation of Niger toppled the final domino in a band across the girth of Africa, from Guinea in the west to Sudan in the east, now controlled by juntas that came to power in a coup — all but one in the past two years. The last leader to fall was Niger’s Mohamed Bazoum, a democratically elected American ally who disappeared on Wednesday when his own guards detained him at the presidential palace in the capital, Niamey. His security chief now claims to be running the country.

Persons: Niger’s Mohamed Bazoum Locations: West African, Niger, Africa, Guinea, Sudan, American, Niamey

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday pledged free grain for some African countries and accused the West of “telling lies” about the dormant deal that had allowed Ukrainian food exports, scrambling to shore up support among African leaders and casting his war in Ukraine as part of an increasingly global conflict. Mr. Putin hosted around 20 African leaders for the start of a two-day summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, drawing a significant contingent of officials from across the continent looking to Russia as a source of arms and food. But the gathering attracted fewer than half the number of leaders who attended the summit in 2019, a sign of how the war has tempered support for Moscow even in a region it has assiduously courted. The Russian president began the summit on the defensive, having refused last week to extend a deal that had protected Ukrainian grain exports, pushing up the price of grain around the world. But Mr. Putin has responded with a multipronged charm offensive that underscored how he is seeking to take on the West on multiple fronts, well beyond the battlefield in Ukraine.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Azali Assoumani, ” Organizations: African Union Locations: Russia, Ukraine, St . Petersburg, Moscow, Russian, Comoros

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia pledged on Thursday to ship free grain to at least six African countries over the next four months, scrambling to shore up Moscow’s image on the continent in the wake of the Kremlin’s refusal to extend a deal that had protected Ukrainian grain exports that help feed millions of people around the world. Mr. Putin, speaking at a summit for African countries in St. Petersburg that drew far fewer African leaders than its 2019 iteration, insisted in a keynote speech that Western hypocrisy rather than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was to blame for disruptions in the global food supply. “Nothing happened of what was discussed and promised to us,” Mr. Putin said, repeating his assertion that the West had failed to fulfill its end of the grain deal and had done nothing to clear the way for Russian food and fertilizer exports. He added that those casting Russia as an unreliable food supplier were “telling lies,” which he said had “been the practice of some Western states for decades, if not centuries.”

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, ” Mr, “, ” Locations: Russia, St . Petersburg, Ukraine

☆ Detained Yet Defiant, Niger’s Ousted President Vows to Save Democracy
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Declan Walsh | More About Declan Walsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Hours after soldiers seized power in the West African nation of Niger, the country’s ousted president sounded a defiant note on Thursday morning, vowing to protect his “hard-won” democratic gains, even as he was being held by his own guards. The president, Mohamed Bazoum, appeared to be still in detention at the presidential palace in the capital, Niamey, where his guards turned on him early Wednesday, prompting a crisis in the vast, largely desert nation twice the size of France. “The hard-won gains will be safeguarded,” Mr. Bazoum said in a message on social media. “All Nigeriens who love democracy and freedom would want this.”The country’s foreign minister adopted a similar tone, telling a French television station that Mr. Bazoum remained the sole “legitimate power” in Niger, and that the military was not united in the attempted coup.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Mr, Bazoum Locations: West African, Niger, Niamey, France

Military officers in the West African nation of Niger ousted the country’s president on Wednesday, they said in an address on national television, throwing into uncertainty the future of one of the West’s few reliable partners in a region marred by coups and widespread insecurity. Army officials representing different branches of Niger’s military, which has received support from the United States and France, among others, said they had “put an end to the regime” of President Mohamed Bazoum of Niger, following a day of stalled negotiations where members of the presidential guard held him hostage in the presidential palace. The officers removed Mr. Bazoum “due to the deteriorating security situation and bad governance,” Col. Amadou Abdramane, an official of the Nigerien air force, said in a statement read on television. The statement also said the officers were closing the country’s borders.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Bazoum, Col, Amadou Abdramane Organizations: Nigerien Locations: West African, Niger, United States, France

Soldiers from the presidential guard in the West African nation of Niger barricaded the president in his palace in an apparent mutiny on Wednesday, according to the president’s office and the regional bloc of neighboring states. The standoff raised fears of a coup in a region that has lately been jolted by many. Militant groups linked to both Al Qaeda and Islamic State operate there. Mr. Bazoum was elected in 2021 in Niger’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power. He has been one of the West’s most reliable partners in a volatile region filled with aging presidents clinging to power and young military officers who have seized control by force.

Persons: Mohamed Bazoum, Al, Bazoum Organizations: Militant, Islamic Locations: West African, Niger, Niamey, Africa, France, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Niger’s

Shunned in the West, his authority tested by a failed mutiny at home, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia needs to project normalcy and shore up support from his allies. So on Thursday, he will host African leaders at a flashy summit in St. Petersburg, part of his continuing outreach to a continent that has become critical to Moscow’s foreign policy. But if Mr. Putin sought to move closer to African leaders as he prosecuted his war, the 17-month-old conflict is now straining those ties. The summit comes against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the Black Sea over Mr. Putin’s recent decision to terminate a deal allowing Ukraine to ship grain to global markets. Russia’s withdrawal has caused food prices to spike, adding to the misery of the world’s poorest countries, including some of those attending the Russia-Africa summit.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Mr Organizations: United Nations, Central African, Kremlin Locations: West, Russia, St . Petersburg, Ukraine, Central African Republic, United States, Africa

☆ Kenya Stares Into ‘Abyss’ as Soaring Prices and Feuding Leaders Bring Chaos
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Declan Walsh | More About Declan Walsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Kenya’s boisterous news outlets are normally fierce rivals. “Let’s save our country,” read an identical banner headline across the front pages of the Daily Nation, Standard and other major papers. Kenya risks tumbling into “a dark and dangerous abyss,” the joint article said, if its leaders fail to resolve a boiling crisis that has destabilized one of Africa’s strongest democracies. Police clashed with demonstrators in Nairobi on Thursday in the second of three days of planned nationwide protests against soaring food and fuel prices and steep tax hikes. The police, sometimes firing live rounds, killed at least six people in clashes on Wednesday and detained about 300, including a prominent opposition politician who was whisked away to a police station 60 miles from the capital.

Persons: William Ruto, “ Organizations: Daily Nation Locations: Kenya, Nairobi

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