Before the coronavirus arrived, Burkina faced growing fighting among rival jihadi terrorists that the share goal of the destruction of the state, rival political and ethnic militias, political groups associated with the business community, remnants of the networks of former dictator Blaise Compaore, deposed in 2014, and the state security services.

In the face of apparently soaring levels of crime and violence, the Nigerian government has launched a community policing initiative. Abuja has set aside N13 billion (about $35 million) to fund the launch and is recruiting some 10,000 constables.

This update represents violence in Nigeria and related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger from September 5 to 11, 2020.

More than one thousand members of Boko Haram have surrendered to the Nigerian army in recent weeks, along with hundreds of women and children that presumably made up their family units. The Cameroonian authorities, too, have announced that at least eighty-two Boko Haram operatives have surrendered or defected, also with their families.

Rex Tillerson will make his first trip to Africa as Secretary of State between March 6 and March 13. He will visit five of Africa’s fifty-four countries—Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria.