Current Affairs 2021: Sahel Crisis Genesis and its Solution

By Yash Singhal

Sahel Crisis has come to the fore of world media recently. Read here the causes and ramifications of the solutions of Sahel crisis.

Sahel, one of the most severely hit regions in Africa, is on the edge of getting collapsed as it is being neglected by the world community for so long. The Sahel comprises of the west and eastern parts of northern Senegal, the southern part of Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, south of Algeria, Niger, the north of Nigeria, the extreme north of Cameroon and the Central African Republic, central Chad, central and southern Sudan, the extreme north of South Sudan, Eritrea and the extreme north of Ethiopia. The region just mourned its 10th anniversary of the crisis. During this time, thousands were killed, millions were affected and billions of efforts went wasted. So what happened to this region that went into such devastating condition that needs world attention.

Sahel Crisis

Most African parts face drought every passing year, but the Sahel got affected mostly during 1971 to 2005. It had experienced droughts regularly and got affected by those people who tend to migrate to the region to meet their daily needs. But during the 2010 famine, the condition worsen, most people were forced to move out of the region that caused mass migration and posed a great problem of food security for millions. Along with that many terrorist organizations like Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AIQM) dumped the sensitive condition into flames. Being hit by food insecurity, people over got indulged in civil wars that led to further devastation, extremism and violence in the region. Deep poverty, extreme violence, chronic food insecurity caused the wide vulnerability. 

In order to curb the violence, France came up with counterterrorism Operation Barkhane, which started in 2013 that collectively with the band of African nations scored successes against terrorists who have wired connections to the Islamic States. This encouraged many European nations to collectively support the France initiative. This resulted in Emmanuel Macron adding more soldiers to add to fight against the terrorism prevailing in the region. But the situation went out of control when France’s local allies got distracted by the internal politics of counterterrorism. Supported by the killing of President of Chad, Idriss Deby, in April by rebel forces threatened to unravel the best–laid French-led plans for the region. Idriss was a close ally of the French government for counterterror support and he enthusiastically received support from other nations to end the extremist rule from the region. In return, the French government provided special protection to Idriss, but due to the assassination, French plans for counter-terror efforts went out of hands. Macron in person attended his funeral to give a strong message to extremist groups that France stands strong for counterterrorism in the region of the Sahel.

Last year, insurgents have killed more than a couple of hundreds of innocent civilians. From 2015-2020, the number of violent attacks have been doubled in some parts of the Sahel and almost tripled in Lake Chad Basin. Due to the mass killing, civilians were forced to get armed to counter the terrorist attack. 

Extremist ideology began erupting in this area as more and more areas came into the control of terrorist organizations. They imposed extremist Sharia Law in the region in which some of the harsh justice was served like amputating thieves’ hands. This came true in May 2021 when the weekly market was held in the village of Tin- Hama in Mali and Deou in Burkina Faso.
With the absence of global efforts and other peacekeeping along with human rights organisations like UNHRC and UNICEF, local peacekeeping agreements provided local populations with at least some respite from violence that won’t last long. Less attention from world authorities and French-led counterterror efforts gave extremists a wide scope of expansion and to impose their will on the people in the region.