Politics at the Heart of the Crisis in the Sahel

The international community has become seized with the spiraling crisis in the Sahel. In September 2019, UN Secretary- General Antonio Guterres warned that “we are losing ground in the face of violence.”1 There has been a rapid expansion of extremist attacks in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger,2 from 180 incidents in 2017 to approximately 800 violent events in the first 10 months of 2019.3 There has also been a sharp increase in displaced persons. In Burkina Faso, for example, the United Nations reports that 486,000 people have been displaced in 2019, compared to just 80,000 in all of 2018. The deteriorating situation in the Sahel and its implications for regional security, migration, criminality, and corruption have spurred foreign partners—including the United States, European capitals, Gulf states, and some West African governments—to throw soldiers, diplomats, and development experts at the problem.

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Burkina Faso has replaced Mali at the epicenter of the Sahel’s security crisis

On Nov. 3, gunmen assassinated one of the last local government still active in northern Burkina Faso. A few days later, militants ambushed a convoy of Burkinabe gold mine workers, killing at least 38 people. On Monday, a helicopter accident killed 13 French soldiers in northern Mali. At least 90 Malian soldiers were killed in separate attacks in November, making it one of the deadliest months in the country’s history.

But while Mali is home to a $1.2 billion UN peacekeeping mission and at least 1,000 French troops, Burkina Faso has no such international response, and the near-daily attacks there however, have shifted the epicenter of the Sahel’s security crisis. The situation in Burkina is in many ways worse than when France first intervened to dislodge jihadists groups in northern Mali in 2012.

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