Security Brief

Africa & Indian Ocean Dashboard — Friday, Sep 11, 2026 — 15:29 UTC INTEL Sep 07
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The Essentials Intel as of Sep 07, 2026
  • Ethiopia-TPLF war resumes as Eritrea realigns with Tigray — Fighting erupted in western Tigray on 1 August 2026 when ENDF units advanced from Shererina near the Sudanese border, the gravest breach of the Novem…
  • Sudan: SAF consolidates North Kordofan as RSF tightens siege of El Obeid — Sudanese Armed Forces and allied units captured Hamrat al-Wiz in North Kordofan on 6 September 2026, extending the corridor recovered in the late-Jul…
  • Eastern DRC: Doha roadmap agreed while M23 offensives continue in South Kivu — Kinshasa and the AFC/M23 alliance agreed a sequenced negotiating roadmap on 23 August 2026 after five days of Swiss-hosted talks from 17 to 21 August…
Threat level changes vs Aug 28
▲ Ethiopia CRITICAL from HIGH
▲ DRC CRITICAL from HIGH
● Eritrea HIGH
▲ Mozambique HIGH from ELEVATED
● Libya ELEVATED
▲ Egypt ELEVATED from MODERATE
Latest
Conflicts Africa & Indian Ocean Regional Conflicts — September 7, 2026 Sep 07 Conflicts SADC Security: DRC Ceasefire Fragile, Cabo Delgado Resilien… May 19 EU Relations EU–Africa & Indian Ocean Relations — September 7, 2026 Sep 07 EU Relations EU-Africa: SADC Trade Hits EUR 52B, Mozambique Mission Exte… May 19
Threat Intensity
Critical High Elevated Low
! Country Threat Matrix
LevelAssessment
Sudan Sudan CRITICAL Active nationwide civil war with the RSF besieging El Obeid and conducting mass-casualty drone strikes while SAF counter-offensives retook Hamrat al-Wiz on 6 September 2026.
Ethiopia Ethiopia CRITICAL ENDF-TPLF hostilities that resumed on 1 August 2026 have passed one month, with drone strikes on Mekelle and a widening anti-federal alignment involving Eritrea and Amhara Fano militias.
DRC DRC CRITICAL M23 and Rwandan forces continued drone strikes and counter-offensives in Fizi and Kalehe in early September 2026 despite the 23 August Doha negotiating roadmap, with 5.3 million displaced.
Somalia Somalia HIGH Al-Shabaab is regrouping and striking Jubaland forces while the AUSSOM funding cliff and the federal-Puntland-Jubaland constitutional standoff erode the counter-insurgency architecture.
Eritrea Eritrea HIGH Asmara's forces crossed into Ethiopian territory on 3 August 2026 and are backing the TPLF, creating direct interstate war risk over Red Sea access and Ethiopian port ambitions.
Mozambique Mozambique HIGH Islamic State Mozambique sustains near-daily attacks across 16 of Cabo Delgado's 17 districts, with the TotalEnergies LNG project still under force majeure and Maputo now self-financing the Rwandan deployment.
Libya Libya ELEVATED The UN-brokered 4+4 accord signed in August 2026 offers an election path but rests on unreconciled Tripoli militias and a boycott by High Council leader Mohammed Takala.
Egypt Egypt ELEVATED Suez Canal revenues remain suppressed by roughly 60 percent amid Bab el-Mandeb attacks, while Ethiopia's post-GERD Karadobi, Mandaya and Beko Abo dam plans deepen the Nile water-security dispute.
Rwanda Rwanda ELEVATED Kigali faces US sanctions and accusations of maintaining forces in eastern DRC, and dismissed Kinshasa's 28 July FDLR disarmament protocol as a delaying tactic.
Madagascar Madagascar ELEVATED The country remains under military rule and AU suspension following the CAPSAT seizure of power on 14 October 2025, with elections deferred to a pledged 18-24 month horizon.
Uganda Uganda ELEVATED Post-election protests on 16 January 2026 over alleged fraud left about 30 demonstrators dead and more than 2,000 arrested, entrenching a pattern of security-force repression.
Djibouti Djibouti MODERATE Domestically stable but directly exposed to Bab el-Mandeb attack activity and to the risk of spillover from an Ethiopian-Eritrean confrontation on its transit corridor.
Tunisia Tunisia MODERATE Human Rights Watch documented prosecutions of more than 47 NGO-linked individuals with 14 convicted and imprisoned during 2025-2026, marking a closure of post-2011 civic space.
South Africa South Africa MODERATE Coalition friction between the ANC and DA and the ANC's failure to submit roughly 200 candidates before the 28 August 2026 deadline complicate the 4 November local elections.
Botswana Botswana LOW No armed conflict or political instability indicators; institutional continuity and civilian control of the security sector remain intact.
SADC Market Indicators
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● Key Developments
  • Ethiopia-TPLF war resumes as Eritrea realigns with Tigray CRITICAL Fighting erupted in western Tigray on 1 August 2026 when ENDF units advanced from Shererina near the Sudanese border, the gravest breach of the November 2022 Pretoria agreement to date according to Al Jazeera. The Soufan Center recorded Eritrean forces crossing into Ethiopian territory on 3 August and a TPLF-Eritrean coalition deploying heavy weapons on 6 August, inverting the 2020-2022 alignment. Drone strikes on Mekelle in August and Amhara Fano understandings with Tigray reported by MadaMasr on 26 August indicate a broadening anti-federal coalition, with hostilities passing the one-month mark by 3 September.
  • Sudan: SAF consolidates North Kordofan as RSF tightens siege of El Obeid CRITICAL Sudanese Armed Forces and allied units captured Hamrat al-Wiz in North Kordofan on 6 September 2026, extending the corridor recovered in the late-July offensive that retook Bara and Um Sayala and restored the Khartoum-El Obeid highway. The RSF nonetheless continues massing around El Obeid, conducting simultaneous drone strikes on major cities on 12 August and systematically degrading the city's power and fuel infrastructure in a pattern Al Jazeera compared on 6 July to the prelude at El Fasher. RSF and SPLM-North forces separately retook Kurmuk and Geisan in Blue Nile in mid-August, pushing the war onto the Ethiopian border.
  • Eastern DRC: Doha roadmap agreed while M23 offensives continue in South Kivu CRITICAL Kinshasa and the AFC/M23 alliance agreed a sequenced negotiating roadmap on 23 August 2026 after five days of Swiss-hosted talks from 17 to 21 August involving the US, Qatar, Togo, Switzerland and the AU Commission. Confidence-building steps included an ICRC-facilitated release of 15 detainees to M23 on 7 August and a Joint Security Coordination Mechanism meeting in Geneva on 12-13 August. The Critical Threats Congo War Security Review of 4 September nonetheless documented an M23/Rwandan drone strike in Fizi district and an M23 counteroffensive in Kalehe, with six core Doha protocols still unnegotiated and 5.3 million people displaced.
  • Fatal Houthi strike in Bab el-Mandeb reimposes Red Sea maritime risk HIGH A Houthi ballistic-missile double-tap attack on the Egyptian-owned, Tanzania-flagged cargo vessel Tihamah in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on 12 August 2026 killed at least six people, including three Pakistani and one Indonesian crew member, with a follow-on missile striking the rescue operation. Al Jazeera assessed it as the first shipping fatality attributable to the Houthis since the US-Israel war on Iran began on 28 February 2026, following the collapse of the Yemen truce after a Saudi strike on Sanaa airport on 13 July. Suez transits remain roughly 60 percent below pre-crisis levels with over 70 percent of East-West container traffic routed via the Cape, imposing sustained fiscal damage on Egypt.
  • Somalia's electoral standoff collides with AUSSOM funding collapse HIGH Constitutional amendments signed in March 2026 extended presidential and parliamentary terms to five years and deferred elections to 2027; the opposition withdrew recognition of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's legitimacy on 15 May, and Puntland and Jubaland have suspended recognition of federal institutions. MadaMasr reported on 19 August 2026 that AUSSOM had received barely a quarter of its $166 million 2025 budget against more than $100 million in arrears, with Washington set to block UN funding beyond December 2026. Al-Shabaab is exploiting the Mogadishu-Kismayo rift, including an attack on Jubaland forces at Bulo Haji.
  • Libya signs UN-brokered 4+4 accord setting a 24-month election horizon ELEVATED Rival Libyan institutions signed a UNSMIL-mediated power-sharing agreement in Tripoli in August 2026, reported by Al Jazeera on 1 September, establishing an eight-member committee with two representatives each from the House of Representatives, High Council of State, the Dbeibah government and Haftar's command. The accord mandates presidential and parliamentary elections within 24 months, permits dual nationals and resigning officers to stand, and restructures the elections commission with rotating sessions in Tripoli, Benghazi and Sabha. High Council leader Mohammed Takala boycotted the ceremony, and the precedents of Skhirat in 2015 and Geneva in 2021 temper expectations.
  • South Africa's ANC misses candidate deadline before 4 November local elections MODERATE The Daily Maverick reported on 4 September 2026 that the ANC failed to submit roughly 200 ward and proportional representation candidates before the Electoral Commission's 28 August deadline, affecting municipalities in the Free State, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. The IEC rejected the party's claim of technical malfunction, confirming that about 2,300 candidates from 45 parties were captured but not formally submitted by the 5pm cut-off and refusing late entries. President Ramaphosa called the problem containable while signalling possible Electoral Court action, as the 4 November poll becomes a mid-term verdict on the Government of National Unity.
⚑ Regional Hotspots
El Obeid, North Kordofan (Sudan)
RSF forces are massing around the North Kordofan capital and striking power and fuel infrastructure after 12 August 2026 drone attacks, while SAF counter-offensives secured Hamrat al-Wiz on 6 September; analysts warn of an El Fasher-style siege outcome.
El Fasher, North Darfur (Sudan)
OHCHR documented over 6,000 killings in the first three days of the RSF's capture of the city in late October 2025 and ruled the conduct war crimes; Darfur remains the RSF rear base for the Kordofan campaign.
Mekelle and western Tigray (Ethiopia)
ENDF-TPLF fighting resumed on 1 August 2026 near Shererina with subsequent drone strikes on Mekelle, and Eritrean forces crossed the border on 3 August, placing the Pretoria agreement effectively in collapse.
North and South Kivu (DRC)
M23 and Rwandan forces conducted a drone strike in Fizi and a counteroffensive in Kalehe in early September 2026 despite the 23 August negotiating roadmap; Goma and Bukavu remain under rebel control since early 2025.
Bab el-Mandeb Strait
A Houthi double-tap missile strike on the Tanzania-flagged Tihamah on 12 August 2026 killed at least six, the first shipping fatalities in over a year, keeping Suez transits about 60 percent below pre-crisis levels.
Cabo Delgado (Mozambique)
Islamic State Mozambique attacks continue across 16 of 17 districts including mortar fire near Macomia and maritime hijackings off Mocimboa da Praia, with over 1.1 million displaced and LNG development still suspended.
Mogadishu and southern Somalia
Al-Shabaab is exploiting the federal-Jubaland rupture and the AUSSOM funding shortfall, attacking Jubaland forces at Bulo Haji as the electoral standoff with Puntland and Jubaland deepens.
Tripoli (Libya)
The August 2026 UN-brokered 4+4 accord sets a 24-month election horizon but rests on unreconciled armed factions in the capital following the May 2025 clashes and recent inter-militia escalation.
Thematic Intelligence Sep 07, 2026
Military & Defense
CRITICAL
The Africa and Indian Ocean theatre is carrying the continent's most lethal concentration of active hostilities, with Sudan, the eastern DRC, Somalia and northern Ethiopia all det…
The Africa and Indian Ocean theatre is carrying the continent's most lethal concentration of active hostilities, with Sudan, the eastern DRC, Somalia and northern Ethiopia all deteriorating or stalled in parallel. Sudan's war has internationalised to a degree now formally documented by UN investigators, with foreign contractors operating precision systems for the RSF and supply chains transiting three neighbouring states. Somalia is fighting a two-front problem in which al-Shabaab pressure coincides with armed intra-federal contestation in South West State, precisely as AUSSOM accelerates handover to Somali forces. The DRC-M23 track has produced procedural progress at Doha without any corresponding decline in battlefield activity. Regional force generation is under strain everywhere, and no theatre currently shows a credible path to consolidation within the reporting quarter.
  • 3 September 2026: a UN-backed fact-finding probe reported that up to 2,000 former Colombian militar…
  • 13 August 2026: RSF forces and allied SPLM-N fighters entered Kurmuk in Blue Nile state on the Suda…
  • 3 September 2026: Somali federal forces repelled a multi-hour armed assault on Baidoa, South West S…
  • 3 September 2026: a UN-backed fact-finding probe reported that up to 2,000 former Colombian military contractors deployed with RSF units in Darfur and Kordofan, directly operating combat drones and artillery, with personnel and logistics facilitated through Chad, Libya and Somalia; the UAE rejected the allegations (Al Jazeera).
  • 13 August 2026: RSF forces and allied SPLM-N fighters entered Kurmuk in Blue Nile state on the Sudan-Ethiopia border as the Sudanese army withdrew, while the army reported repelling an RSF assault on Jabra al-Sheikh in North Kordofan involving over 250 combat vehicles (Al Jazeera).
  • 3 September 2026: Somali federal forces repelled a multi-hour armed assault on Baidoa, South West State's largest city, by militias loyal to ousted governor Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, whom the Defence Ministry accused of operating alongside al-Shabaab; it was Laftagareen's third attempt since March 2026.
  • 4-5 September 2026: SPLM-N artillery bombardment killed at least 21 people near Kauda and a further five, including a child, in Dilling, South Kordofan, with attacks reported to have targeted the minority Otoro community (Al Jazeera / Sudan Doctors Network).
  • Through August 2026: fighting resumed in western Tigray near the Sudanese border, following January 2026 TDF-aligned advances across the Tekeze into Tselemt and the seizure of Alamata and Korem, with a Tsimdo coalition emerging that links TPLF, Fano and OLA elements against the federal government (Al Jazeera, 5 September 2026).
  • 12-13 August 2026: the sixth Joint Security Coordination Mechanism met in Geneva on the DRC file, yet only two of the eight protocols under the November 2025 Doha Framework have been signed and FARDC-M23 fighting has continued (Security Council Report, September 2026 forecast).
Outlook: Expect further RSF manoeuvre against Kordofan transport nodes and the Blue Nile corridor into Q4 2026, with drone excha…
Outlook: Expect further RSF manoeuvre against Kordofan transport nodes and the Blue Nile corridor into Q4 2026, with drone exchanges continuing to drive mass-casualty incidents; the UN findings on foreign contractors raise the probability of an expanded arms embargo push at the Security Council. In Somalia, the AUSSOM drawdown timetable and intra-federal armed disputes create a widening seam for al-Shabaab around Baidoa and the Mogadishu periphery. Northern Ethiopia remains the highest-consequence latent escalation, where TPLF-Fano-Eritrea alignment could convert an internal insurgency into an interstate contingency.
Diplomatic & Political
ELEVATED
Regional diplomacy is producing frameworks faster than implementation, a pattern visible from Doha to Tripoli. The Congolese-M23 process has generated a negotiating roadmap and co…
Regional diplomacy is producing frameworks faster than implementation, a pattern visible from Doha to Tripoli. The Congolese-M23 process has generated a negotiating roadmap and confidence-building measures without closing six of eight substantive protocols, while Libya's actors signed yet another UN-mediated electoral roadmap on 30 August 2026 against a record of at least nine stalled accords since 2011. Domestic political space is narrowing sharply in Tunisia, where the appellate confirmation of mass conspiracy convictions has effectively criminalised the organised opposition. Continental representation has also weakened: the AU has not visibly replaced South Africa's convening weight in the G20 under the US presidency. Alignment realignments, including Kinshasa's Jerusalem embassy pledge, indicate that transactional bilateralism is displacing bloc positions.
  • 3 September 2026: Tunisia's top court upheld conspiracy convictions against 40 opposition figures, …
  • 4 September 2026: Tunisian police detained Mohamed Yousfi, editor-in-chief of the investigative out…
  • 30 August 2026: rival Libyan administrations agreed a UN-mediated roadmap for national elections wi…
  • 3 September 2026: Tunisia's top court upheld conspiracy convictions against 40 opposition figures, lawyers and rights defenders, including 14 years for Ennahda founder Rached Ghannouchi, 12 years for Najib Chebbi and 20 years each for Ghazi Chaouachi, Issam Chebbi, Jawhar Ben Mbarek and Ridha Belhaj, with a maximum sentence of 45 years (Al Jazeera).
  • 4 September 2026: Tunisian police detained Mohamed Yousfi, editor-in-chief of the investigative outlet Al-Qatiba, the latest in a series of 2026 prosecutions of journalists critical of President Kais Saied (Al Jazeera).
  • 30 August 2026: rival Libyan administrations agreed a UN-mediated roadmap for national elections within two years, following a 16 June 2026 tripartite commitment to simultaneous presidential and parliamentary polls by 17 February 2027 and the April 2026 approval of Libya's first unified budget in over a decade (ISS Today, 1 September 2026).
  • 3 September 2026: President Felix Tshisekedi and Israel announced the DRC would relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reviving a September 2023 commitment and making Kinshasa the first sub-Saharan African government to formalise the pledge (Al Jazeera).
  • 23 August 2026: the DRC government and the M23-led alliance agreed a roadmap of sequenced steps and timelines after five days of Swiss-hosted talks (17-21 August) involving the US, Qatar, Togo, Switzerland and the AU Commission; a ceasefire verification mission reached Minembwe, South Kivu on 26 August (Al Jazeera).
  • 4 September 2026: ISS assessed that the AU has not filled the representational gap left by South Africa's exit from the G20 chair, noting the US presidency programme contains just four ministerial meetings against roughly 130 official meetings and 25 ministerials under South Africa's 2025 chairmanship, and that the AU's April 2026 Malabo retreat roadmap was never published.
Outlook: The Doha track will likely continue to yield procedural deliverables through Q4 2026 while the substantive protocols on…
Outlook: The Doha track will likely continue to yield procedural deliverables through Q4 2026 while the substantive protocols on state authority, security arrangements and IDP returns remain unsigned, keeping the eastern DRC in managed conflict rather than settlement. Tunisia's judicial consolidation is now effectively irreversible ahead of the next electoral cycle and will keep EU and US human-rights conditionality in tension with migration cooperation. Libya's February 2027 election date should be treated as aspirational; implementation capacity, not agreement text, is the binding constraint.
Economic & Trade
ELEVATED
The region's trade architecture is in transition as the US preference regime nears expiry and African governments assert localisation. AGOA now runs only to 31 December 2026 after…
The region's trade architecture is in transition as the US preference regime nears expiry and African governments assert localisation. AGOA now runs only to 31 December 2026 after a retroactive extension signed on 3 February 2026, leaving apparel and automotive exporters in Kenya, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mauritius and South Africa exposed to a step change in tariff exposure within four months. Simultaneously, Nairobi has moved to reserve small-scale retail for Kenyan nationals, signalling a broader shift toward local-content conditionality across the East African Community. Extractive value capture is the other dominant theme, from South African chrome and PGMs to the restarted Mozambique LNG project. Investment sentiment remains constructive on energy and minerals but increasingly discounts regulatory and security risk.
  • 2 September 2026: President William Ruto directed the closure of small retail and hawking businesse…
  • 3 February 2026: AGOA was extended retroactively from 30 September 2025 only to 31 December 2026; w…
  • AGOA exports fell 32 percent in the year to November 2025, and South African vehicle exports to the…
  • 2 September 2026: President William Ruto directed the closure of small retail and hawking businesses run by foreign nationals in Kenya, with enforcement beginning 7 September and the Local Content Bill 2025 accelerated through Parliament; Kenya's FDI stock stood at KES 1.458 trillion (USD 11.27 billion) at end-2023, supporting 224,769 jobs (Al Jazeera).
  • 3 February 2026: AGOA was extended retroactively from 30 September 2025 only to 31 December 2026; without renewal Kenya's trade-weighted average US tariff would rise from about 10 percent to 28 percent, while South Africa retains a 25 percent auto tariff and 50 percent steel and aluminium tariffs (ISS Africa, 13 March 2026).
  • AGOA exports fell 32 percent in the year to November 2025, and South African vehicle exports to the US collapsed from 25,544 units in 2024 to 6,530 in 2025, a decline of roughly 75 percent (ISS Africa).
  • 13 August 2026: a soil collapse at a disused chrome site near Nkaneng, Rustenburg killed 14 informal miners, part of a criminal economy that has shifted from Gauteng gold shafts into North West province chrome fields; 23 illegal mining cases, 63 accused, 20 trucks and 15 excavators were recorded over two years (Al Jazeera, 6 September 2026).
  • 29 January 2026: TotalEnergies formally relaunched the USD 20 billion, 13 million tonne per annum Mozambique LNG project at Afungi in Cabo Delgado, targeting first gas in 2029 and projected to generate about USD 35 billion for the Mozambican state, after the UK withdrew USD 1.15 billion in export finance (Al Jazeera).
  • Team Europe currently supports more than 150 projects worth EUR 3.47 billion in Kenya's green transition plus EUR 430 million across 30-plus digital projects, with the EU as Kenya's largest export destination sustaining over 500,000 Kenyan jobs (European Commission, International Partnerships).
Outlook: The final quarter of 2026 will be dominated by AGOA cliff-edge planning; expect accelerated diversification toward EU E…
Outlook: The final quarter of 2026 will be dominated by AGOA cliff-edge planning; expect accelerated diversification toward EU EPAs, intra-African trade under AfCFTA and Gulf buyers, with Lesotho, Eswatini, Mauritius and Kenyan apparel most acutely exposed. Localisation measures of the Kenyan type are likely to be emulated regionally, raising compliance costs for foreign SMEs while leaving capital-intensive FDI largely untouched. Extractives will remain the principal FDI channel, with beneficiation demands hardening the negotiating posture of Pretoria, Kinshasa, Windhoek and Dar es Salaam.
Cyber & Technology
MODERATE
Africa remains structurally over-exposed to cyber risk relative to its share of global digital assets, with attack volumes running well above the global mean and defensive maturit…
Africa remains structurally over-exposed to cyber risk relative to its share of global digital assets, with attack volumes running well above the global mean and defensive maturity lagging rapid digitisation. Ransomware remains concentrated in South Africa, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of continental detections, while espionage-grade activity is broadening across telecommunications, energy, financial services and logistics. The July 2026 disruption of Angola's largest mobile operator demonstrated that availability attacks against national telecom infrastructure can now produce nationwide service outages with macroeconomic timing effects. The current global vulnerability cycle, including actively exploited browser and e-commerce flaws disclosed in early September 2026, propagates into African environments with longer patch latency. Attribution capacity and law-enforcement throughput remain the principal continental gaps.
  • Check Point's African Perspectives on Cyber Security report, drawing on January-September 2025 tele…
  • 7 August 2026: reporting on META threat telemetry recorded spyware attacks across Africa up 40 perc…
  • 28 July 2026: Angola's largest mobile operator Unitel suffered a cyberattack that disrupted voice, …
  • Check Point's African Perspectives on Cyber Security report, drawing on January-September 2025 telemetry across all 54 African states, found African organisations facing about 3,153 weekly attacks against a 1,963 global average, with over 41 percent of major global ransomware attacks targeting African organisations and 80 percent of successful intrusions originating in email (TechCentral).
  • 7 August 2026: reporting on META threat telemetry recorded spyware attacks across Africa up 40 percent year-on-year, password stealers up 31 percent (51 percent against businesses), backdoor detections up 23 percent, and more than 20 APT groups actively tracked against META-region targets (African Business).
  • 28 July 2026: Angola's largest mobile operator Unitel suffered a cyberattack that disrupted voice, mobile data and internet services for more than 21 million subscribers, on the same day the government closed a public offering for 15 percent of the carrier; no exfiltration or attribution was confirmed (Dark Reading).
  • 4 September 2026: Google patched an actively exploited type-confusion zero-day in the Chrome V8 engine enabling arbitrary code execution, alongside disclosure of a 12-year-old PostgreSQL logical-decoding flaw permitting replication-role code execution (The Hacker News).
  • 6 September 2026: an unpatched Magento and Adobe Commerce zero-day tracked as StyleSmuggler was reported to allow unauthenticated remote code execution against online stores, while attackers were observed hijacking internet-exposed MikroTik routers via SSH to obtain administrative access without authentication (The Hacker News).
  • 5 September 2026: threat actors exploited a critical TeamCity vulnerability to access JetBrains' Cadence cloud service and extract AWS credentials, and PaperCut authentication-bypass and RCE flaws were being exploited against education-sector targets (The Hacker News).
Outlook: Expect continued ransomware concentration on South African enterprise and public-sector targets, with utilities and mun…
Outlook: Expect continued ransomware concentration on South African enterprise and public-sector targets, with utilities and municipal service providers the most consequential victims, and gradual diffusion toward Kenyan, Egyptian and Nigerian financial services as digital payment volumes grow. Exposed MikroTik estates and unpatched Magento storefronts are the most likely near-term mass-exploitation vectors on the continent given long patch cycles. Espionage-grade targeting of telecom operators and ministries is likely to persist, with attribution remaining weak absent expanded INTERPOL and national CERT capacity.
Maritime & Territorial
HIGH
The Western Indian Ocean is experiencing simultaneous state-actor and criminal maritime threats for the first time since the early 2010s. Somali pirate action groups reactivated d…
The Western Indian Ocean is experiencing simultaneous state-actor and criminal maritime threats for the first time since the early 2010s. Somali pirate action groups reactivated decisively in April-May 2026, operating both inshore near Garacad and deep offshore with hijacked dhows as motherships at ranges of 300 to 600 nautical miles. In the Red Sea, the resumption of Houthi targeting after a three-and-a-half month pause has again suppressed Suez transits and lifted war-risk premia, with reporting that Tehran has asked the Houthis to prepare for closure of Bab el-Mandeb. Riparian and territorial disputes remain unresolved in parallel, including Nile water governance after GERD's completion and Ethiopia's continuing search for sovereign sea access. The chokepoint economics of Djibouti, Bab el-Mandeb and Suez now sit at the centre of the region's strategic risk.
  • 21 April 2026: the Palau-flagged product tanker MT Honour 25 with 17 crew was hijacked roughly 30 n…
  • Operation Atalanta confirmed the March 2026 hijacking of the Alwaseemi 786 east of Mogadishu before…
  • 2 March 2026: senior Houthi officials signalled resumption of missile and drone operations against …
  • 21 April 2026: the Palau-flagged product tanker MT Honour 25 with 17 crew was hijacked roughly 30 nautical miles off the Somali coast en route Berbera-Mogadishu and anchored near Xaafun/Bandar Beyla; MV Elfriede was approached 83 nautical miles south of Eyl on 23 April, a dhow was seized near Garacad on 25 April for use as a mothership, and a tanker was approached about 500 nautical miles east of Mogadishu on 28 April (Windward).
  • Operation Atalanta confirmed the March 2026 hijacking of the Alwaseemi 786 east of Mogadishu before its early-April release, with the April-May 2026 cluster the first time since the 2010-2012 peak that three commercial vessels were held simultaneously.
  • 2 March 2026: senior Houthi officials signalled resumption of missile and drone operations against Red Sea shipping after a pause from mid-November 2025; Suez containership transits had recovered only to 26 per week by mid-January 2026 against 80 per week before November 2023, and Maersk rerouted the Maersk Houston and Astrid Maersk around the Cape on 5 and 12 March (gCaptain).
  • 17 July 2026: EU High Representative Kaja Kallas, visiting Operation Aspides headquarters in Djibouti, said the EU was weighing an expanded mandate including minesweeping amid reporting that Iran had asked the Houthis to prepare to close Bab el-Mandeb, through which 10-15 percent of global maritime trade passes; Aspides has protected over 670 merchant vessels and rescued 128 seafarers since February 2024 (Euronews).
  • 30 March 2026: the Council of the EU updated the mandates of EUNAVFOR ASPIDES and EUNAVFOR ATALANTA, maintaining the two-operation architecture covering the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Somali Basin and Arabian Sea (Council of the EU).
  • 21 August 2026: following GERD's September 2025 inauguration, Ethiopia is advancing three further Blue Nile hydropower projects at Karadobi, Mandaya and Beko Abo with combined capacity of about 5,700 MW, while Egypt has shifted from blocking construction toward seeking negotiated operating rules and coordination with Sudan (Al Jazeera).
Outlook: The northeast monsoon transition from October 2026 will reopen favourable sea states for pirate action groups in the So…
Outlook: The northeast monsoon transition from October 2026 will reopen favourable sea states for pirate action groups in the Somali Basin, and a further hijacking cluster should be treated as likely absent additional escort capacity. Red Sea risk is now hostage to Iran-Israel escalation dynamics rather than to Yemeni domestic politics, meaning war-risk premia and Suez transit volumes will remain volatile through Q4 2026. Nile basin diplomacy is unlikely to produce a binding agreement, but the shift toward technical operating rules lowers near-term escalation risk between Cairo and Addis Ababa.
EU Cooperation & Investment Portfolio 58 projects · EUR 31,113M · trade agreements in EU Global
★ EU
EU Cooperation & Investment Portfolio
Africa & Indian Ocean — Active programmes, partnerships & trade agreements
EUR 31,113M
Total Investment
58
Projects & Programmes
29
Countries Covered
53
Active
Top Sectors by Investment
Energy & Green Transition 6 EUR 13,911M
Infrastructure & Transport 6 EUR 10,667M
Governance & Rule of Law 6 EUR 2,395M
Agriculture & Food 3 EUR 929M
Humanitarian 1 EUR 896M
Flagship Projects
South Africa — Just Energy Transition Partnership
EUR 12,000M 2021–2027 ACTIVE
Egypt — Strategic Partnership Package 2024-2027
EUR 7,400M 2024–2027 ACTIVE
Lobito Corridor — Global Gateway Flagship
EUR 2,000M 2023–2027 ACTIVE
Active (53) Completed (4) Planned (1)