Secretary of State John Kerry is due to arrive in Kenya Monday to discuss terrorism in neighboring countries before traveling on to Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.
Kerry will first meet with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to discuss regional issues, including the conflict in neighboring South Sudan and ongoing violence in Somalia.
He will then travel to Nigeria to meet with President Muhammahu Buhari on the country's worsening economy and corruption issues, as well as the looming threat of terror group Boko Haram.
Boko Haram, the group responsible for the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls from a school in Chibok in 2014, has killed at least 20,000 people in its seven-year uprising against the Nigerian government. It surpassed Islamic State in 2014 to become the world's deadliest terrorist group, according to the 2015 Global Terrorism Index, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace.
Kerry will spend Wednesday and Thursday in Saudi Arabia meeting with national leaders from the gulf region as well as British counterparts and the U.N. envoy to Yemen to discuss the war in the neighboring country.
A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Shi'ite rebels in Yemen in support of the internationally recognized government for years, but has drawn criticism from rights groups and world leaders for indiscriminate bombings.
Just Thursday, international medical humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced the withdrawal of their staff from a number of hospitals in Yemen after 19 people were killed when a hospital in the northern Hajja province was bombed. MSF says it was the fourth such attack on one of their facilities in the past 12 months.
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