This update represents violence in Nigeria and related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger from May 9 to 15, 2020.

In March, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi have experienced severe flooding from Cyclone Idai. Around the same time, parts of Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska experienced devastating flooding along parts of the Missouri River system caused by heavy snowmelt and rain. 

The 2013 al-Shabab attack on Nairobi's Westgate Mall lasted four days and left sixty-seven shoppers dead, the youngest an eight-year-old child. The attack was seen as a response to Kenyan military activity in Somalia against al-Shabab that began in 2011.

Senegal is a major center of West African Islam, and its imams, mullah, and brotherhoods are influential across the Sahel. The holy city of Touba, 120 miles east of the Senegalese capital of Dakar, is the site of a major annual pilgrimage called the Magal

On October 5, Mali's interim president, retired colonel Bah Ndaw, announced his cabinet. As is frequent in West Africa, it is large, with twenty-five members.