From Mogadishu’s labs to Banjul’s skeletal remains, African forensics see AI as the next battlefield weapon against crime — but global support will decide how fast it takes hold.
Artificial intelligence is creeping into African crime labs — not as a luxury, but as a survival tool. Somalia and The Gambia, two nations on opposite ends of the continent’s fragile security spectrum, are looking at AI as the lever that could finally move their forensic systems out of the manual age.
Somalia’s story shows how quickly necessity breeds innovation. In 2016, Mogadishu built its first forensic lab. At first, it was fingerprints, plastic samples, and paper records. Today, officers use facial recognition on CCTV footage and digital forensics to track terror suspects.
Still, Somalia has no domestic DNA sequencing; samples are flown to South Africa. Biometric databases are pooled with Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, creating a fragile but growing regional net.
Behind the progress is outside muscle. U.S. mentors, FBI specialists, EU funding, UN labs, and African Union support all underpin Somalia’s capabilities. Explosives linked to al-Shabaab attacks are analyzed with American assistance. Digital evidence often leaves the country entirely.
As Col. Muhidin Ahmed Osman, head of Somalia’s criminal investigations, admits: “If we bring full AI into our lab, everything will change — faster, sharper, suspects easier to trace.”
The Gambia, by contrast, is still stuck in the manual trenches. Fa Kebba Darboe, who runs the country’s forensic medicine service, bluntly admits: “We are basically manual still.” His office, with just 15 staff, struggles to move beyond rudimentary DNA and skeletal analysis.
Post-Jammeh truth commissions relied on confessions more than science.
Darboe sees AI as a “key player” but insists manpower and training must come first. His team leans on Senegal, Ghana, and the West African Forensics Network to fill gaps. Next steps? Training exchanges with Türkiye in ballistics and toxicology, if funding comes through.
Both Somalia and The Gambia underscore the same truth: AI alone won’t save African forensics. Without political commitment, regional cooperation, and foreign backing, the technology risks remaining a buzzword. Yet for governments battling terror cells and digging up decades of mass graves, AI could be the difference between blind guessing and hard evidence.
Or as Darboe put it: “AI is the way for the new world … to get the dream come true.”
