Abdulbasit Kassim, leading Boko Haram scholar, recently discovered a thirty-eight-minute recording of a purported Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) communique. I translated it from the original Kanuri. It provides a particular version and explanation of ISWA's immediate history, and sheds light on why the group executed Mamman Nur, one of the Boko Haram’s founding fathers and an influential ideologue, its internal decision-making, and ISWA’s relationship with the Islamic State (IS). It is not clear, however, the extent to which what is described in the audio is true to what actually happened. 

This is a guest post by Allen Grane, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. On June 19, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) crushed more than a ton of e…

On June 27, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar met in person for the first time in two years and agreed to a ceasefire to end the civil war, now in its fifth year. Dubbed the Khartoum Declaration, this latest ceasefire may initially appear to be a victory, but violence resumed mere hours after it went into effect.

Women are responsible for 70 to 80 percent of all agricultural labor in Nigeria, and according to federal and state law, they have the right to hold and inherit land. But, only 10 percent of land owners in Nigeria are women. This discrepancy is also present elsewhere in Africa and around the world. African communities will be some of the hardest hit by climate change, but protecting women’s land rights can help mitigate the effects.

On February 20, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan issued its third report. Despite the peace deal signed five months ago, it documented an increase in cases of rape and sexual violence over the past year, concluding that the crimes had “become quite normalized” in South Sudan. Driving much of this is oil.