Due to unexpected maintenance work, the African Library will be closed on Thursday 20 August and Friday 21 August. You are welcome to visit the Library again during the weekend and from Monday 24 August. The Middle Eastern Library will remain open via the University Library (UL) passage. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Late July 2026, seventy thousand Moroccans, many of them under eighteen, travelled hundreds of kilometres toward the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Within days almost all of them were back. A new blog by Chaimaa Radouani follows what happened to their bodies before, during and after that crossing.

Between 1822 and 1847, some 4,500 American ex-slaves and free-born Blacks, unwanted and ill-treated in the country of their birth, sailed to West Africa to settle in an unknown territory. While researching the history of Liberia’s origins, author Fred van der Kraaij made a remarkable discovery. 

'Meat and Mining' is a conference on the animals whose flesh was used to power the industrial mining revolution that took place in southern Africa following the discovery of copper, diamonds, and gold from the 1850s onwards. The conference will be held in Leiden 1-4 September 2027. Deadline papers: 1 October 2026.

South Africa witnesses nationwide anti-immigration protests, demanding the deportation of undocumented foreign nationals. The protests tap into anxieties around unemployment and crime. Beneath these grievances lies a dangerous political habit of turning migrants into scapegoats, writes Tinashe Chimbidzikai.

Submit your Africa-related master’s thesis for the Africa Thesis Award 2026, have it published and win € 500! The Africa Thesis Award is an annual initiative by the African Studies Centre Leiden and Brill that recognises outstanding master’s theses.