West Africa | featured news

Within the past few days, French combat forces have deployed to the West African state of Mali to halt the advance of militant Islamist fighters toward the capital and to help the Malian army begin to reclaim towns previously occupied by the militants.

Ghana's electoral authorities said incumbent leader John Dramani Mahama won a new term as president in the West African state in an election the opposition said was marred by tampering.

Sierra Leoneans crowded polling stations on Saturday to vote in a close-fought election they hope can rebrand their poor, war-scarred West African state as an emerging democracy with the potential for fast growth from mining and oil.

A multimillion-dollar, kidnap-and-ransom industry in West Africa's dry north is funding al-Qaida-linked gunmen dubbed "gangster-jihadists."

The seven missing in London. That's what the headlines in the West African nation of Cameroon call the athletes who walked away from the Olympic village at the London Games.

The French government has renewed its call for citizens -- especially those with children -- to leave Ivory Coast as soon as possible, the French Foreign Ministry said Friday.

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was sworn in for a new term, even though the United Nations and world leaders maintain his opponent won the disputed election, the West African nation's first since a civil war.

At least 200 people were killed when a trench collapsed at an unofficial gold mine in Sierra Leone, the West African country's Ministry of Mineral Resources said on Friday.