Author | Lightnews

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 1d

I spoke with three survivors of the RSF assault on el-Fasher. They described the city’s fall in harrowing detail and a desperate journey, carrying children and themselves wounded for days to reach safety in Tawila.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...

New light shed on el-Fasher horror as survivors arrive in Sudan’s Tawila

Testimonies describe bodies in streets, families torn apart and days without food as paramilitary seizes Sudan city.

www.aljazeera.com

Reposted by Faisal

suhauna hussain @suhauna.bsky.social · 2d

An ad in today’s LA Times paid for by San Francisco-based pro-Israel organization “Facts and Logic About the Middle East” calls accusations of Israel committing genocide in Gaza “blood libel” and says “genocide liars deserve the label of ‘antisemite’”

1 4 3

Reposted by Faisal

Howard French @hofrench.bsky.social · 3d

Reading. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/w...

Working Past 100? In Japan, Some People Never Quit.

www.nytimes.com

3 4

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 3d

I interviewed Sami Hamdi's wife and his legal team. He's a British-Tunisian commentator and pro-Palestine activist that has been detained by US immigration authorities. He's been held by ICE for almost a week now

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...

‘Bring him home’: Sami Hamdi’s wife urges US to release UK journalist

Soumaya Hamdi describes shock detention at San Francisco airport as lawyers file emergency legal challenge.

www.aljazeera.com

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 3d

It is really awful.

Reposted by Faisal

Melissa Chemam @melissaontheroad.bsky.social · 3d

The night of rebellion that changed France and Algeria forever:

On the night of 31 October 1954, a series of attacks across colonial Algeria marked the start of the Algerian War – a bloody conflict that would last eight years.

rfi.my/B5iV.BS

The night of rebellion that changed France and Algeria forever

On the night of 31 October 1954, a series of attacks across colonial Algeria marked the start of the Algerian War – a bloody conflict that would last eight years. Claimed by the newly formed National…

rfi.my

1 1 3

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 6d

Mohammed Zakaria lost sleep tracking el-Fasher’s fall, then saw on social media that his family had been killed.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...

Sudanese activist sees his executed uncles in RSF videos from el-Fasher

Mohammed Zakaria lost sleep tracking el-Fasher’s fall, then saw on social media that his family had been killed.

www.aljazeera.com

1

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 9d

Africa has seen a wave of coups over the last five years. I dug into why this pattern keeps repeating itself, even in countries with totally different circumstances.

somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/africas-mi...

Africa’s militaries re-enter the driver’s seat

Ten coups in five years have returned Africa’s soldiers to power. Cast as saviors against corrupt civilians, they now rule across the continent but history shows their promises rarely deliver.

somaliarchive77.substack.com

1

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 20d

The Madagascar coup, though popularly backed, continues a long-running trend of the militarisation of African politics in recent years, beginning with the belt stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, to Gabon to now Madagascar.

apnews.com/article/mada...

Leader of Madagascar's military coup tells AP he is 'taking the position of president'

The leader of Madagascar's military coup says he is “taking the position of president” and that the armed forces will remain in charge of the sprawling African island nation for up to two years before...

apnews.com

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 22d

"Thirty-two African nations spend more servicing external debt than funding healthcare, while 25 allocate more to debt than to education."

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...

Urgent debt relief demanded for Africa amid public sector crisis

Many African nations now spend more servicing external debt than funding healthcare and education.

www.aljazeera.com

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 25d

"While Mengistu’s move may advance Soviet aims in Africa (see box), it also relieves the U.S. of the moral burden of backing yet another bloodthirsty dictatorship."

Archives, May 1977

time.com/archive/6881...

time.com

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 25d

Been looking into why Jimmy Carter didn’t frame the 1977 Somalia-Ethiopia war purely in Cold War terms & back Mogadishu when Moscow supported Ethiopia.

His administration was signalling it no longer wanted a reactive, anti-Soviet policy in the Third World.

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · 25d

My latest blogpost looks at the almost simultaneous collapse of Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia's governments at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s

89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”

somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/89-91-nort...

89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”

Between 1989 and 1991, every government from Chad to Somalia collapsed. The region still grapples with the legacy of this tumultous period.

somaliarchive77.substack.com

2 6

Reposted by Faisal

Melissa Chemam @melissaontheroad.bsky.social · 27d

the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead

Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive

www.theguardian.com

2 2

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · Oct 5

Attackers wore military uniform and rode vehicles imitating security forces to breach a high-security prison in the capital.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...

Al-Shabab fighters killed in Mogadishu prison assault, Somalia confirms

Attackers wore military uniform and rode vehicles imitating security forces to breach a high-security prison in capital.

www.aljazeera.com

Reposted by Faisal

Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Sep 28

"Numbers matter... Yet Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway University of London fears the continent is now on the cusp of a new 'data dark age'."

My latest 👇

www.economist.com/middle-east-...

Measuring mortality is getting even harder in Africa

One estimate puts deaths in the war in Tigray at 5,325; another at 600,000

www.economist.com

2 3

Reposted by Faisal

Zecharias Zelalem @zekuzelalem.bsky.social · Sep 28

THREAD: this investigation took up over half my year, but it's here in @thecontinent.org:
A Djiboutian drone strike in January was depicted as a army operation targeting rebels. It was actually a massacre of civilians. The bloodshed & coverup implicating Ethiopia, Djibouti, France & Turkiye.
#OSINT

The Continent 27 SEPTEMBER 2025 | ISSUE 215
15
INVESTIGATION
The Djiboutian massacre
Ethiopia won’t acknowledge
Djibouti drones killed eight people on the other side of its
border with Ethiopia. Djibouti claimed they were terrorists.
Ethiopia said nothing. This investigation found that some of
the dead were Ethiopians, revealing another episode in Addis’s
tendency to let its neighbours kill its citizens with impunity.
Crossing the line: Djibouti’s bombs landed inside Ethiopia, killing civilians – not armed fighters.
zecharias zelalem
On 30 January this year, a drone manned
from Djibouti dropped a bomb on a
funeral gathering in Siyaru, a remote,
semi-arid village near the Ethiopia
Djibouti border. As rescuers rushed in, a
second bomb dropped. And then a third.
At least eight people were killed,
including three children. Several
others were injured. Given the village’s
remoteness, the incident might have
gone unreported if graphic images of
the dead hadn’t spread across Ethiopian
social media.
A statement from the Djibouti’s
defence ministry said the drone struck
rebel fighters from the Front for the

Restoration of Unity and Democracy
(Frud), a Djiboutian political party with
a military wing. It has been fighting for
Afar interests in Djibouti since the 1990s.
The Afar are a community split by the
colonial border separating Ethiopia,
Djibouti, and Eritrea.
“Eight terrorists were neutralised on
site,” said a Djibouti military statement.
“Unfortunately, collateral damage
among Djiboutian civilians in the area
has been documented.”
International media, including Voice
of America, Agence France Presse, and
Radio France Internationale reported
this version of events.
Now, new findings from an open
In recovery: Mariam Mohammed Abdullah was
injured in the drone strike.
source investigation by The Continent
reveal a different reality.
The bombs landed inside Ethiopia,
not in Djibouti, and civilians – not armed
fighters – were killed. That distinction
matters. It shows Ethiopia is once again
tolerating a foreign military targeting its
own citizens, as it did with Eritrea during
the Tigray conflict.
A transparent lie
Even before the ink could dry on the
Djiboutian military’s statement, The
Addis Standard and human rights groups
in Djibouti were emphatic that the strike
had actually occurred inside Ethiopia’s
Afar region. But Alexis Mohamed, an
adviser to Djiboutian President Ismaïl
Omar Guelleh, rubbished these reports
in now-deleted social media posts.
The Continent got to work to figure out
what really happened. Over the course
of eight months, we collected eyewitness
testimonies, interviewed human rights
activists in Ethiopia and Djibouti, and
examined images and footage from the
strike. Our findings align with those of
Djiboutian activists, who pinpointed
Siyaru in Ethiopia’s Afar region as the
site of the strike.
The ammunition residue found on the
night of the strike confirms the bomb
was manufactured by Roketsan, a state
run weapons manufacturer in Türkiye.
Former US army explosives expert
Trevor Ball identified t…

8 170 310

Reposted by Faisal

Melissa Chemam @melissaontheroad.bsky.social · Sep 15

Who doesn't like a September dramatic sky?

Blue sky, white cloud and early autumn wind over the Canal, London, York St.

1 1 12

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · Sep 2

In my latest piece, I spoke with Ethiopian doctors who went on strike – many of whom were arrested – over pay and working conditions earlier this year. The strikes were suspended to give the government a chance, but they could resume this month.

www.aljazeera.com/features/202...

www.aljazeera.com

2

Reposted by Faisal

Melissa Chemam @melissaontheroad.bsky.social · Aug 30

Hundreds of workers in Ghana have been protesting on the streets of the capital, demanding the cancellation of Africa's growing debt...

rfi.my/BxzT.BS

Pan-African protestors gather in Ghana to demand cancellation of Africa's debt

Hundreds of workers in Ghana have been protesting on the streets of the capital, demanding the cancellation of Africa's ballooning debt.

rfi.my

1

Reposted by Faisal

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · Aug 28

Alex and I wanted to craft our research philosophy, and, according to Alex, Mila was the best person to lead the project. The final philosophy was more like a manifesto with 7 principles. You can read it at www.dair-institute.org/research-phi....

Research Philosophy

Our research is intended to benefit communities which are typically not served by AI.

www.dair-institute.org

1 11 39

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · Aug 23

This week's east Africa newsletter is up.

This week: we spoke to Afyare Elmi on the state of the nation (not good); the body of a Somali woman found in London; US likely holding its line on Somaliland; Minnesota Democrats drop Omar Fateh, & more.

www.geeskanewsletter.com/p/somalias-t...

Somalia’s third republic could end if things don’t change, warns Afyare Elmi

Issue #11: All of Somalia’s former living presidents also united to condemn the alleged misuse and sale of public land by the government.

www.geeskanewsletter.com

1

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · Aug 21

Africa Is Big, and It Wants the World’s Maps to Show It

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/w...

Africa Is Big, and It Wants the World’s Maps to Show It

www.nytimes.com

Faisal @faisalahali.bsky.social · Aug 21

"Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare."

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Revealed: Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war

Figures from classified IDF database listed 8,900 named fighters as dead or probably dead in May, as overall death toll reached 53,000

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Faisal

Tom Gardner @tomgardner18.bsky.social · Aug 21

Autocrats without borders -- my latest in this week's @economist.com, with reporting from Uganda.

www.economist.com/middle-east-...

Are east African governments colluding to stifle dissent?

A raft of recent cases raises a disturbing suspicion

www.economist.com

1 3 2