Sky’s the Limit: Photo 7 – Nairobi, Kenya – Day 213: The conditions inside the dilapidated buses were always cramped and exhausting. This is what the inside of the bus looked like on my way back to Nairobi. The following morning, I began the most dangerous leg of my journey. 📖 Excerpt from Sky’s the Limit (link in bio): Nairobi’s streets at 2:30 in the morning are grim. Huge piles of garbage line the broken sidewalks, and the smell of raw sewage obliterates every other scent. Small piles of trash burn in the middle of each intersection and give the city’s eerie darkness a lawless, postapocalyptic feel. Most of the dangling streetlamps don’t work; the dim headlights of the taxi I’m in barely illuminate the pitch blackness. I feel anything but safe. But much worse than the darkness is the statement that Al Shabaab released two days ago: Kenyan cities will run red with blood. I’m in one of those cities—a poor suburb of Nairobi called Eastleigh. Its nickname is “Little Mogadishu” as it’s inhabited mostly by Somali immigrants. Since 2012, this neighborhood has experienced several attacks linked to Al Shabaab. Most of the buildings we pass are crumbling; some look bomb blasted. One actually is—a blast killed six people here last year. There are only a handful of people walking the streets at this hour. They look as tough as you’d expect. The taxi driver I’ve hired, who assured me he knew where the bus station was, can’t find any of the streets he’s looking for. He slows the car without looking at me and then pulls over and rolls the window down. A stranger emerges from the shadows. This is exactly how Western tourists end up on the news. The driver asks him a question in Swahili—directions, I surmise. They both look confused. This is the most dangerous thing I could be doing here. To my relief, the driver finally pushes the pedal down, and off we go again. A few minutes later, still no bus station, so my driver pulls over, and we repeat the same hair-raising process. It feels like just a matter of time before we’re carjacked...

莫三比克北部德爾加杜角省（Cabo Delgad）城鎮帕爾馬（Palma）自上週三（24日）起遭到與「伊斯蘭國」相關的激進主義叛軍「青年黨」（Al-Shabaab）突襲，已進入第六天但至今情勢無減緩趨勢，目前已造成至少數十人喪命、超過50人失蹤，當地通訊也被切斷。 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 帕爾馬近期正在進行非洲最大規模的液態天然氣工廠施工作業，該工廠斥資200億美元，主要由法國石油道達爾集團（Total）投資，另外還有6家企業參與，包括埃克森美孚公司（ExxonMobil）。綜合外媒報導，上週三下午「青年黨」叛軍展開攻擊行動，居民紛紛躲避至附近叢林，而天然氣工廠工作人員及外國承包商等約200人則逃往當地的帕爾馬愛瑪樂飯店（Amarula Palma）避難。在受困三天後，受困於飯店的人決定嘗試離開，並組成17輛車的車隊，然而最後僅有7輛車抵達安全地點，且車上仍因遭到叛軍伏擊而有人員傷亡，剩下的10輛車則下落不明（基本上已被認定死亡）。 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 根據脫逃者的敘述，離開飯店後，他們前往海灘等待救援，卻發現海灘上已有多具無頭的受害者屍體。另外，也有多人在週六抵達帕爾馬南方城市彭巴（Pemba）避難。莫三比克政府表示，救援行動仍在持續當中，軍隊已發動攻勢，並準備好將叛軍逐出帕爾馬。 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 🇲🇿自2017年以來，叛軍長期盤踞德爾加杜角省，該地區近年來發現蘊含豐富天然氣。此次的行動實質上反映莫三比克的內政和安全問題：貧窮使部分人民選擇以極端手段對抗政府。根據聯合國統計，三年多的混亂已造成至少2600人喪命、67萬人流離失所。若叛軍成功控制帕爾馬液態天然氣工廠建造工程，則將使政府失去數十億美元的收入，進一步打擊國內經濟。 ———————————— #莫三比克 #青年黨 #叛軍 #液態天然氣工廠 #非洲 #國際時事 #國際新聞 #國際內世鏡 #mozambique #alshabaab #palma #attack #africa #insightintoissues- - 資料來源：中央社、關鍵評論網、華視新聞、美聯社、Anadolu Agency、Al Jazeera、France24、Human Rights Watch 圖片來源：歐新社 - 🌐補充資料： Mozambique: Fresh attacks on Palma, as Total prepares to return to LNG project（The Africa Report）｜https://www.theafricareport.com/75169/mozambique-fresh-attacks-on-palma-as-total-prepares-to-return-to-lng-project/

Sky’s the Limit: Photo 6 – Lyantonde, Uganda – Day 190: I was separated from my passport for 40 days and while waiting for my passport to be returned to me in Uganda, I bartered my room and board with a family that owned a handful of hotels across the country. On the way from one hotel in Lyantonde to another one in Mbarara, I strapped my GoPro to the front bumper of the maintenance man’s truck. As the staff at the Skyblue Motel gathered around, I explained that it was recording us. 📖 Excerpt from Sky’s the Limit (link in bio): Now that I’ve got my travel visa, I can leave for Kenya tomorrow, make a quick pit stop in Kisumu for the night, and then go on to Nairobi the next day. From there, I’ll travel north to the Ethiopian border town of Moyale. Looking forward to finally being able to make progress, I open my laptop to catch up on the news. That’s when I see the headline. No. Please, God, no. I lean closer to the screen. Gunmen stormed Garissa University College in Kenya early this morning and killed 148 people. I click on the article. Al Shabaab rounded up seven hundred students from the university’s dormitories and then executed all the Christians. I’m numb. I take a deep breath to brace myself before I can keep reading. Collins Wetangula, the vice chairman of the student union, said that when the gunmen arrived at his dormitory, he could hear them opening doors and asking the people who had hidden inside whether they were Muslims or Christians. “If you were Christian, you were shot on the spot. With each blast of the gun, I thought I was going to die.” He said that when he heard the gunshots, he locked himself and three roommates in their room. “All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots—nobody was screaming because they thought this would lead the gunmen to know where they are,” he said. “The next thing, we saw people in military uniform through the window of the back of our rooms who identified themselves as the Kenyan military,” Wetangula said. The soldiers took him and around twenty others to safety. “We started running and bullets were whizzing past our heads and the soldiers told us to dive,” Wetangula said....