Sahel: always and still conflicts

Ahmedou Ould Abdallah President centre4s

Since 2005, the Sahel remains again and again weakened by terrorism! Due to the environment degradation, it is expanding and terrorism is spreading, taking root, and becoming commonplace. This context exposes and further weakens this vast area composed of countries that are often poorly structured to face the multiple ambitions and internal and external threats of more organized, more determined actors announcing to all attractive promises down here and beyond. The continued rooting and expansion of that terrorism – now a Sahel trademark – is reinforced by the bloody civil war in Sudan, still in its early stages, the armed impasse in Libya and the headlong rush of the Sahel states themselves. The return to a kind of cold war remains a useless bet in the face of so many dangers promising to terrorism rooting and expansion. The deficit in anticipation capacities, one of the immense challenges remains to be overcome.

Sahel: Resurgence of Boko Haram?

Limam Nadawa, Consultant Centre4s.org

On the night of October 27 to 28, 2024, the Nigerian terrorist group, Boko Haram, attacked a Chadian garrison, located on Barkaram, island department of Kaya, near the Nigerian border. The terrorists took control of the military base, ransacked various equipment and recovered weapons before withdrawing. That tragedy raises the question of whether Boko Haram, supposedly weakened, has regained strength. The Barkaram attack also shows Chad and its neighbors’ difficulties in fighting together against the terrorist hydra.

 

Sahel: deficits in anticipation and conflict management

Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, president of centre4s

For the past 10 to 15 years, in the Sahel, security has yet to improve. On the contrary, it has become entrenched and has worsened. Fueled by infrastructures destructions and populations distress, anarchic migrations to cities and, beyond, to overseas countries, insecurity continues. Worse, it is spreading west, east and viciously to the south, towards the Gulfs of Benin and Guinea.

 

 

 

Sahel: terrorism and surge of trafficking

Limam Nadawa consultant, centre4s.org

Terrorists attacks in Tinzwaten Mali, Niger oil pipeline, Barsalogho Burkina Faso and Barkaram island…  It should be remembered that the advent of terrorism and the war in Libya have exacerbated various forms of trafficking in the Sahel: mainly firearms, drugs, fuel, medicines, cigarettes, migrants and human beings. The worse the insecurity becomes, the more these scourges grow, increasing profits but also the number of their ghostly actors. In complicity with a number of official authorities, these war profiteers strive to perpetuate the conflicts that are ravaging the Sahel.

Sahel: Sadats, Turkish Wagners in Niger.

Limam Nadawa, consultant centre4s.

Wagner – renamed Africa Corps – heavy losses in Mali, July 2024, were widely publicized. But not those of new mercenaries of Syrian origin deployed in the Sahel by Turkey in Niger. Estimated at least to one thousand, they belong to Sadat, a firm owned by Adnan Tanriverdi, former advisor to Turkish president. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, SOHR, which tracks the Syrian conflict, stated in May 2024, that Sadat had deployed in Niger, in September 2023, one thousand one hundred Syrian mercenaries, trained in Turkey. According to the same source, that company trained members of a security force protecting Colonel Assimi Goïta, Mali Transition President.