Last year was especially eventful in Africa, where deadly terrorists and even deadlier disease kept many countries in turmoil. Here’s an overview of six events that made 2014 a troubling year in the giant continent.

Ebola

The Ebola epidemic began at the end of 2013 in Guinea. From there it spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal. Many of the affected countries faced enormous challenges in stopping its spread and providing care for patients. Thousands of people died. The pandemic destabilized the economic system, already fragile in these countries, and led some other countries to close in on themselves to guard against the invasion of the virus.

U.S. President Barack Obama declared Ebola a danger to U.S. national security: “We’re going to have to get U.S. military assets just to set up, for example, isolation units and equipment there to provide security for public health workers surging from around the world. … If we don’t make that effort now … it could be a serious danger to the United States.”

Many Africans made fun of Obama’s comments. Instead of sending doctors to help the sick, the president preferred to send soldiers to isolate the doctors and multiplied American bases in Africa.

Terrorism

Since the beginning of the Islamist insurgency in Nigeria in 2009, Boko Haram has committed multiple kidnappings and killings. On April 14 its fighters attacked a secondary school in Chibok and captured 230 high school girls, according to the director of the school. Dozens of them managed to escape their captors. Of the 187 young women still missing, the head of the council of elders of Chibok explained on BBC the fear that most have been married by force and taken to neighboring countries. On Dec. 14, suspected members of Boko Haram came in vans to attack the village of Gumsuri. They killed 32 people and abducted at least 185 others, including many women and children. During this attack, they slaughtered all the men before leaving with the captives. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s government has displayed a well-known inability to protect the Nigerian population facing this monumental disaster.

But the Cameroonian army recently inflicted heavy losses on the terrorists, killing several hundred Boko Haram fighters. On Dec. 11, 116 militants were killed in an attack they carried out against the Cameroonian army in Amchidé. Cameroonian officials reported only one dead and one missing from the army’s ranks. The next day, at least 180 Islamists were killed by Cameroonian soldiers who sustained no casualties. During earlier attacks against Boko Haram, the Cameroonian army seized nearly $14,000, plus heavy weapons, ammunition, and a tank.

Conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa

The year started violently in sub-Saharan Africa, with an outbreak of conflicts in South Sudan and the Central African Republic to add to ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although the hotbeds of tension and conflict have been significantly reduced in Africa, it remains the continent where people suffer from intra-territorial disputes. These conflicts often are located in areas rich in mineral resources. While many people blame the violence on a lack of investment in the security sector, geostrategic interests trump all other issues. The conflicts in Africa will remain as long as divergent interests continue to grip its governments and people.

High price for speaking out

In 2014, Africa was a safer place for journalists than the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. At least 128 journalists have been killed around the world, with in 32 dying in African countries, according to the 2014 report from the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC). Among the deadliest regions for the press, the Middle East is in the lead, with 46 journalists killed, ahead of Asia (31), and Latin America (27). In sub-Saharan Africa, 14 journalists died: Somalia (5), Central African Republic (4), Guinea (3), Libya (2), Nigeria, and Democratic Republic of Congo (1 each).

In relation to abductions, detentions, and arrests of journalists, Europe and the Middle East rank ahead of Africa, according to a 2014 report from Reporters Without Borders.

Trial of Oscar Pistorius

In the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, Oscar Pistorius, a Paralympic champion, shot his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, to death. Accused of premeditated murder, Pistorius was sentenced on Oct. 21 to five years in prison for “involuntary manslaughter.” He was also sentenced to three years’ suspended sentence for use of a firearm. This trial was on again, off again before finally taking place in March 2014. South African judge Thokozile Masipa took into account the seriousness of the offense but also Pistorius’ personality and disability in issuing her ruling. She explained that “a non-custodial sentence would send a wrong message to society, but on the other hand, a long prison sentence would not be appropriate.”

Pistorius’ case monopolized the attention of South Africans and foreign journalists to the point of overshadowing President Jacob Zuma’s annual speech to Parliament in February 2013.

Shipwrecked on African lakes

Navigation on the great lakes of Central Africa can be as perilous as on the high seas when the weather conditions are bad. On March 22 a boat bringing back Congolese refugees from Uganda to the Democratic Republic of Congo sank on Lake Albert, causing nearly 100 deaths. “Forty-one people have been rescued, and 98 bodies were found,” the UNHCR said in a press release two days later, adding officials were “shocked and saddened” by the terrible event. The passengers didn’t have lifejackets for their trip in the churning waters.

On Lake Kivu, 18 bodies were recovered after their boat sank on June 21 between the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu. Near the end of 2014, a boat overloaded and battered by high winds sank Dec. 11 on Lake Tanganyika in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 129 people were killed, and 232, mostly men, who had managed to hang on to cans or floating objects, were rescued. Eleven days later, another sinking in DRC took the lives of 30 people in Kisangani.

Looking ahead

African wars are likely to continue or expand in 2015. Clashes on Dec. 18 between Anti-Balaka and ex-Séléka militias killed 28 in the city of Mbrés, 186 miles north of the Central African Republic capital, Bangui. On Dec. 9 the British council Control Risks issued the 2015 edition of its annual security risk advisories for businesses and people around the world. Sub-Saharan African countries, including Chad, Niger, Mali, South Sudan, Ivory Coast, Somaliland, Eritrea, and Burundi are included in the “high risk” category.

Some of these countries are presently in a state of war (Mali, South Sudan, CAR). Others are under the threat of Islamic terrorists (Niger, Chad, Somaliland). Still others are in a state of incipient war (Ivory Coast, Burundi, Niger).