Cellphone towers now mar the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and have had to be banned on cross-country buses in Nigeria, because highwaymen have used them to coordinate robberies.

Italy, whose oil company Agip operates in Nigeria, is helping to train locals to protect oil platforms.

Three years ago, when Anja travelled to Africa from Denmark, for the first time she saw how children were being tortured for superstition in rural Nigeria.