Project

Guinea-Bissau: West Africa's New Achilles' Heel

An international network led by Latin American drug cartels and the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah has chosen West Africa, among the poorest and more corrupted corners of the world, as the nexus for illegal trade in cocaine, oil, counterfeit medicines, pirated music and human trafficking. International law enforcement officials say the profits fuel terrorist activities worldwide.

The past three years has seen a staggering increase in drug trafficking in particular, making West Africa — and especially the countries of Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Ghana and Guinea — the premier narcotics region of Africa. The consequences are most visible in Guinea-Bissau, which saw the double assassination of its president and army chief on the same day in early March and more recently the murder of two leading politicians in the struggle for succession.

July 02, 2009 | El Pais

In the heart of the narco-state

Drug traffickers use Guinea Bissau as a base to smuggle drugs to Europe. A journalist from El Pais visited the country: one of the poorest nations in the world, where militaries -- involved in bloody clashes -- hinder drug trafficking investigations and Latin American drug dealers cross Bissau's dark nights in luxury cars.

June 29, 2009 | Pulitzer Center

The Bissau-Conakry Plan

Marco Vernaschi

Marco Vernaschi, for the Pulitzer Center

(Editor's note: This is the seventh of eight dispatches, recounting events surrounding the double assassinations of Guinea Bissau's president and army chief of staff last March and the country's emergence as a 'narco state.')

Several years ago, two long-friends met in Guinea Conakry to talk about some business opportunities. They were Lasana Conte and Joao Vieira, the presidents of Guinea Conakry and Guinea Bissau. It was 2006 and cocaine trafficking in West Africa was at a development stage.

June 28, 2009 | Süddeutsche Zeitung

Overcome by violence: A country bleeding to death

Marco Vernaschi

Story written by Peter Burghardt

Updated Feb.11, 2011

From the introduction on the Süddeutsche Zeitung site (translated from German):

"Originally, the Italian photographer Marco Vernaschi wanted to do a photo story on drug dealers in Guinea-Bissau, Africa. But he ended up in a gruesome war between the military and the government. First, the highest ranking army general was murdered. Then Vernaschi drove to the house of the president who had just been killed by soldiers. A photo essay from the heart of hell."