The Catalan and Spanish tourists who had been trapped in Ethiopia by the Fano militia uprising in the Amhara region were successfully evacuated. This was confirmed to ARA by the tourists' families. A military helicopter picked them up and took them to the city of Bahir Dar, from where they were then flown to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The group has already booked return tickets to Catalonia. "We don't yet have the flight details, but they will most likely arrive in Spain via a European layover on Monday morning," said Jonás Baños, director of the Kananga travel agency.

"My sister, Núria, is stuck on the road between the cities of Gondar and Bahar Dar," explains Neus from Barcelona. Núria left for Ethiopia on a trip organized by the Barcelona-based agency Kananga at the end of July, but she has been stuck for six days. in the Amhara region (in the northwest of the country) due to the armed uprising of the Fano militia, which in just a few days has seized control of the entire region by force and rebelled against the army. "I've been communicating with my mother by text message for six days now, and they need food and medicine," Núria's daughter, Mar, also explained by phone.

It was September 30th, and in Burkina Faso, rumors of another coup—the second in just eight months—were circulating, and the country was glued to their television screens. There was no signal. Gunfire and explosions could be heard near the Ouaga 2000 neighborhood, where the presidential palace, the homes of wealthy families, and the embassies are located. The capital, Ouagadougou, awoke in uncertainty and confusion. The rumors were confirmed: a new military uprising had just taken place.

"Ibrahim Traoré is not a new Sankara, but he is a Sankaraist," says a teacher from a school in Bobo-Dioulasso. Following his assassination in 1987, the Burkinabe revolutionary leader, Thomas SankaraThe man who changed his country's colonial name—Alt-Volta to Burkina Faso, "the homeland of upright men"—has left behind a very strong current of anti-colonial thought. This thought defends, above all, the dignity of the African people and "cooperation with all the peoples of the world," in opposition to the "image of the beggar" that the West had imposed through development aid.

"Out with the white woman, out with the white woman!" is the first thing I hear upon arriving at Tiéfo Amoro Square in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, the epicenter of anti-French protests and demonstrations in support of the military junta that has ruled the country since the coup d'état of September 30, 2022. "IB! IB! IB! IB!" Ibrahim Traoré, the world's youngest president, has promised to restore peace to Burkina Faso, a West African country, by July 2024. An ambitious promise for a country that already has more than two million internally displaced people and 11,312 deaths since 2016, according to the organization Conglicte. in the hands of terrorist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State that operate mainly in the northern and eastern regions of the country.

The coup in Niger, led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, head of the presidential guard of the ousted president, Mohamed BazoumThis has worried French President Emmanuel Macron, who convened an emergency Security Council meeting on a Saturday at 3:00 p.m. An unusual time, were it not for the fact that France needs uranium from Niger to operate the nuclear power plants that supply electricity to the entire country. "We will not tolerate any attack against France and its interests in Niger," Macron declared from the Élysée Palace. France is the leading nuclear energy power in Europe and the second largest in the world, after the United States. In fact, more than half of its production—64.67% of its total electricity—comes from nuclear power, according to data from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"We are facing a new cold war in the Sahel, which has become Europe's new geopolitical laboratory," says Beatriz Mesa, researcher and professor at Gaston Berger University. The coup in Niger has shifted the pieces of the game in the international and geopolitical sphere. Two blogs have spoken out and taken a position.

Niger expects a military response from Nigeria, Benin, Ivory Coast and Senegal after the Nigerien military junta ignored the ECOWAS ultimatum (Economic Community of West African States) to "restore constitutional order" and release President Mohamed Bazoum. The deadline was 11 p.m. last Sunday, and this group of governments had warned that they would take military action to restore order in the Sahel country.

The chairman of the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) commission, Omar Touray, announced in a statement that ECOWAS has ordered the "immediate activation of the West African community's standby forces" and the "deployment" of these forces.to restore constitutional order in NigerThey have not specified in which territory or border they would deploy them, but these "standby forces" refer to a military force of the group of African countries that has about 2,500 soldiers from the different member states.

“From now on, the Sahel’s resources should benefit Sahelians and partners who understand the paradigm shift in today’s diplomacy,” says Azise Sodore, head of the geography department at Joseph Ki-Zerbo University in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. The Sahel is the semi-desert belt between the Sahara Desert to the north and the Sudanese region to the south, stretching 5,000 kilometers between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. “The Sahel’s natural resources have made it the target of geopolitical and geostrategic plans,” Sodore says, noting the greed of those who want to exploit them.

A group of soldiers organized under the name of the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP) announced on Niger's state television on the night of July 26-27 that they had overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum after holding him captive throughout Wednesday in the presidential palace in the capital, Niame. The UN has suspended its humanitarian aid program in the country, which benefited 4.3 million people.

"It's not a mistake; Donald Trump has bombarded Christmas Day because it's an important date for Christians and because it's a way to get people talking about him," explains Silas Jonathan, a disinformation expert at the Center for Journalism, Innovation and Development (CJID). US President Donald Trump, announced this Thursday in a statement Published on Truth, his social network, the United States launched a "powerful and deadly" attack against Islamic State camps in Nigeria on Christmas Eve.

It's exam day at the Lycée Française Saint-Exupéry in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Very close to the central market, a hub of commerce, bustle, and shouting, stands a wall with double barbed wire and little signage. From the outside, it doesn't look like a high school, but when you walk through the door, neither does it. There's very little activity and a lot of silence. In fact, it's Baccalaureate day. selectivity, an exam such as the selectivity that allows students to continue higher education and that puts an end to the stage of high school (equivalent to high school).

By 2050, up to 1.2 billion people could be forced to flee their homes due to the climate crisis, according to a report by the think tank Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) cited by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), although it points out that the "most widely cited" estimate is 200 million.The UN has long warned that climate migrations Migration is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, which has so far generated debate but few facts. Most are displacements within the borders of the same country, but more and more people are forced to migrate due to droughts, floods, hurricanes or simply because of the loss of their livelihood due to rising temperatures or rising sea levels. "Migrations could be managed if there were a rational migration policy, but the current one is based on racist and xenophobic prejudices," says Miguel Pajares, president of the Migration Policy Group. Honorary Member of the Catalan Commission for Aid to Refugees (CCAR).