Search (Ghana)

This report looks at the continued threat extremist groups pose to organizations operating in northern Côte d’Ivoire, where open-source reporting and U.S. Embassy Abidjan messaging detail attacks in adjacent areas of Mal...

Over the past 18 months, piracy incidents emanating from Nigeria have proliferated in frequency, tactical diversity, and geographic spread throughout the Gulf of Guinea. In particular, maritime kidnapping-for-ransom inci...

The CDC has issued a blanket Level 2 Travel Health Notice for Polio in parts of Africa and Asia. The notice urges enhanced safety precautions for travelers to 22 countries whose limited health systems, poor sanitation pr...

Combined with a series of kidnappings of locals since the start of 2019, a recent trio of foreigner abductions has generated a flurry of media reports alleging a trend and portending a growing risk to foreigners.

UPDATE: OSAC is reissuing this report originally issued in March in the midst of a new outbreak of Lassa Fever, a potentially fatal acute viral illness. On January 22, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) declar...

The sociocultural landscape of Ghana, coupled with Accra’s counterterrorism policies, has thus far diminished the threat posed by violent Islamism to the West African country. Much of Ghana’s Muslim population ascribes t...

Ghana will likely experience some low-level, localized violence during its presidential and parliamentary elections on December 7, despite the West African country’s recent history of peaceful transfers of political powe...

The so-called ‘meningitis belt’ of sub-Saharan Africa (see image), which includes over 400 million people in 26 countries, tends to see periodic waves of meningitis outbreaks, most often during the dry season (December-J...

Piracy and maritime crime in the Gulf of Guinea dropped by nearly a third from 2014 to 2015. The Nigerian government’s decision in January to extend for at least another year the amnesty program for Niger Delta militants...

Ghana’s largest opposition party held a protest on February 18 in the capital, Accra, against the country’s reportedly worst power blackouts in a decade. Erratic electricity supply in Ghana is not a new phenomenon, but h...

Cholera infects between 3-5 million people each year, killing approximately 100,000. Epidemics are often linked to poor sanitation, improper drainage, unhygienic street foods, and/or environmental factors including flood...

Due to steady economic growth, the U.S. private sector is heavily engaged in West Africa. Many businesses, universities, NGOs, and faith-based groups have regional operations, or are considering operating, in Nigeria, Gh...

This interactive product is a compilation of information from previous OSAC reporting on Ebola and Department of State messaging by country.

This is the third of three papers on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa that has killed more than 1,000 people. The Department of State, the CDC, and WHO have issued various messages and guidance about the outbreak. This...

The largest outbreak of Ebola ever reported has been sweeping through West Africa, causing over 720 deaths and at least 1,000 more infections.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a rare virus native to Central Africa. The virus has taken more than 1,500 lives since it was first recorded in 1976, including the last major Ebola outbreak in 2012, when at least 31 people di...

This report examines the rise of Gulf of Guinea piracy from a private sector security perspective and highlights some of the obstacles to combating piracy as well as outside factors that could impact future security such...

Petty crimes are common in Ghana’s capital, Accra. These include purse-snatching, pick-pocketing, and smash-and-grab incidents (where a thief smashes a vehicle window to grab items from inside). OSAC regularly receives...

On Thursday, December 21 at approximately 2am, an American vacationing in Accra awoke to find three intruders, one armed with a shotgun and two with revolvers. He and two family members sustained blunt trauma to the head...

This report is a compilation of criminal activity affecting American citizens and organizations in Ghana during the third quarter of 2006 as reported by U.S. Embassy Accra.