Sahel ‘at a crossroads’ as armed groups gain sway in Africa: UN
International community criticized after a joint force fighting against armed groups left without adequate funding and other needed support.
Efforts to combat armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS), al-Qaeda and others have failed to halt their expansion into Africa’s Sahel region, a senior United Nations official has warned.
Without more international support and regional cooperation, instability towards West African coastal countries will increase, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa Martha Pobee said at a Security Council meeting on Tuesday.
“There is an urgent need to make progress in the fight against terrorism, violent extremism and organized crime in the Sahel,” said Pobee. “The devastating effects of the continued destabilization of the Sahel would be felt far beyond the region and the African continent.”
An anti-terror force — now comprising Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania and Niger — lost Mali a year ago when the ruling generals decided to withdraw. Pobee said the force has not conducted major military operations since January.
She said the force is adapting to new realities: France is moving its anti-terror force from Mali to Niger over tensions with the military government, and Mali’s decision to allow Russian Wagner Group mercenaries to be deployed on its soil.
Burkina Faso and Niger recently strengthened military cooperation with Mali to counter a spate of attacks, but “despite these efforts, insecurity continues to grow in the Tri-Country Point,” she said.
Pobee criticized the international community, saying that a lack of consensus among donors and partners meant that the joint force lacked sufficient funding and other necessary support to become fully operational and autonomous so that it would have “the capacity to sustain the Sahel region”. to help stabilize”.
An agreement between the UN, the European Union and the force under which UN peacekeepers in Mali provided fuel, rations, medical evacuation and technical support is expected to expire in June, she said, and expressed the hope that the Security Council would issue of UN funding for African peacekeeping operations.
‘Threat to international peace’
Eric Tiaré, executive secretary of the force known as the G5 Sahel, said experts have finalized a new concept of operations, which will be submitted to the Defense Council and then the African Union for approval.
“Given that the Sahel is at a crossroads and faces many threats to international peace and security, it is imperative that we support the force,” he said. “The force needs what it has always lacked and what it has always sought – which is sustainable funding and equipment as we try to fight terrorism.”
UN counter-terrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov told the Security Council in January that ISIL’s expansion in Africa’s central, southern and Sahel regions is “particularly concerning”.
Last August, African security expert Martin Ewi said at least 20 African countries were directly involved in ISIL activities and more than 20 others were “used for logistics and to mobilize funds and other resources”.
Ewi, who coordinates a transnational organized crime project at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa’s capital Pretoria, said IS is growing day by day in Africa and the continent could be “the future of the caliphate”.