A boat with 57 migrants onboard arrives at La Restinga port on the Canary island of El Hierro, on September 14, 2024. Antonio Sempere/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
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West Africa
This photograph shows a boat that arrived with 41 people on board, including two minors, on the Canary island of Tenerife in July 2023. Desiree Martin/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
An empty room is pictured in a concrete house in Matam, Senegal. Many families don't have electricity nor the means to own a fan or air conditioning to help quell the intense heat at night, temperatures can stay around 35 degree Celsius throughout the night. John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
A shattered father recounts his kidnapping and the struggle to negotiate with the kidnappers for the release of his children. Terna Iwar for NPR hide caption
For one Nigerian family, freedom after a kidnapping hasn't ended their terror
Supporters celebrate the release of Senegal's top opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and his key ally Bassirou Diomaye Faye outside Sonko's home in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, March 14, 2024. Sylvain Cherkaoui/AP hide caption
Julius Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone, speaks at the start of the Transforming Education Summit at the United Nations headquarters, in September 2022. Bio declared a nationwide curfew after gunmen attacked the West African country's main military barracks in the capital. Seth Wenig/AP file photo hide caption
Col. Major Amadou Abdramane, center, is shown speaking during a televised statement. Soldiers claimed on July 26, 2023, to have overthrown the government of Niger President Mohamed Bazoum in a statement read out on national television. -/ORTN - Télé Sahel/AFP via Getty hide caption
People cheer as ballot papers are counted at a polling station in Abuja at the end of election day in Nigeria MICHELE SPATARI/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Diakine Sambou, queen of the sacred forest of Kaoupoto, on Feb. 23, 2021, in Mlomp, Senegal. Ricci Shryock hide caption
Dr. Benjamin Black in front of the Gondama Referral Center in Sierra Leone, where he worked during the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016. The center treated children and women in urgent need of obstetric and gynecological care. As the outbreak exploded, the center decided to stop admitting pregnant women, a decision that still weighs on Black. Courtesy of Benjamin Black hide caption
The general Nanisca, portrayed by Viola Davis, is the star of The Woman King. When a man objects to her influence, she retorts: "If the king respects me, it is because I have earned it." Ilze Kitshoff/Sony Pictures hide caption
Beninese chef and cookbook author Valerie Vinakpon, center, is coming up with novel ways to present her country's fare, hoping to get people excited about Beninese cooking. Above, she talks to High On The Hog co-hosts Jessica B. Harris, left, and Stephen Satterfield, right, at her restaurant Saveurs du Benin. Netflix hide caption
Children of about 6,000 ethnic Fulanis who have been displaced by attacks gather in a makeshift camp in Youba, Burkina Faso, in April 2020. The West African nation continues to be racked by violence linked to Islamic extremists and local defense militias. Sam Mednick/AP hide caption
Claude Mabowa, 21years-old, an Ebola virus survivor and student, sits inside what used to be his sisters bedroom in Beni, north eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on September 17, 2019. He lost four family members to Ebola and whilst recovering inside the Ebola Treatment Centre he managed to take and pass his final school exams. John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
An artist's rendering of DNA. Scientists have found traces of DNA that they say is evidence that prehistoric humans procreated with an unknown hominin group in West Africa. Westend61/Getty Images/Westend61 hide caption
'Ghost' DNA In West Africans Complicates Story Of Human Origins
Fatou "Toufah" Jallow says she was raped by former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh. She now lives in Canada but returned home to testify before the nation's Truth Commission. 2019 Human Rights Watch hide caption
Beauty Queen's Rape Allegation Against Former Gambia President Sparks #MeToo Movement
Prince Charles speaks with a guest at an event in Lagos, Nigeria, where he delivered a speech using phrases in pidgin English. Sunday Alabama/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Engraving shows the arrival of a Dutch slave ship with a group of African slaves for sale, Jamestown, Va., 1619. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption
Chef Dadisi Olutosin makes collard greens, a beloved staple of the American South — but with a Caribbean-West African twist. NPR hide caption
Cattle owned by Fulani herdsmen graze in a field outside Kaduna, northwest Nigeria in February 2017. Stefan Heunis/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Clashes Over Grazing Land In Nigeria Threaten Nomadic Herding
Farmer Georges Kouamé Koffi holding two cocoa pods. Chocolate is made from the almond-sized cocoa beans contained in the pods. Alex Duval Smith for NPR hide caption
A Dip In Global Prices Creates Cocoa Crisis For Ivory Coast's Farmers
The fake U.S. embassy in Accra, Ghana. U.S. State Department hide caption
A worker stands near dividers intended to separate patients in an Ebola treatment facility under construction in the Port Loko district of Sierra Leone in 2014. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption
Omu Fahnbulleh stands over her husband after he staggered and fell, knocking him unconscious at an Ebola ward in Liberia in 2014. John Moore/Getty Images hide caption