How West Africa is under threat from Islamist militants: The Islamist militants surge in West Africa continue to threaten peace and economic stability of the region. The situation has prompted France’s President and his counterparts from the Sahel region to plan a meeting to discuss military operations against Islamist militants surge and escalation.
Attacks on civilians and army bases across the region are occurring with increasing regularity despite thousands of troops from the both the affected counties and troops from France. Last year saw the highest annual death toll due to armed conflict in the region since 2012.
Last week, at least 89 soldiers from Niger were reportedly killed and scores were wounded in the latest attack. France has also suffered significant casualties, losing 13 soldiers in a helicopter crash in Mali in November.
The Sahel region, a semi-arid stretch of land just south of the Sahara Desert, has been a battle zone in the war against Islamist militancy for almost a decade.
However, it is increasingly clear that the problem facing Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania (known as the G5 Sahel) is not just the presence of armed groups, and that more than military action is urgently needed to address a worsening climate change, humanitarian crisis and development challenges.
The overarching worry is that the crisis could spread further across West Africa. The security crisis in Sahel region started in 2012 when an alliance of separatist and Islamist militants took over northern Mali, triggering a French military intervention to expel them as they advanced towards the capital, Bamako.
A peace deal was signed in 2015 but was never completely implemented and new armed groups have since emerged and expanded to central Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Casualties from attacks in those countries are believed to have increased many folds since 2016, with over 4,000 deaths reported last year alone.
Armed groups, including some linked to Al-Qaeda and others the Islamic State group continue to expand their presence and capabilities in West Africa region. The joint G5 Sahel countries, which have an estimated 5,000-strong force battling the militants, the French have had 4,500 soldiers deployed in the Sahel since 2013.
