Category Archives: Sahel

Lethal heatwave in Sahel worsened by fossil fuel burning, study finds

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Deaths from record temperatures in Mali reportedly led to full morgues turning away bodies this month


The deadly protracted heatwave that filled hospitals and mortuaries in the Sahel region of Africa earlier this month would have been impossible without human-caused climate disruption, a new analysis has revealed.

Mali registered the hottest day in its history on 3 April as temperatures hit 48.5C in the south-western city of Kayes. Intense heat continued across a wide area of the country for more than five days and nights, giving vulnerable people no time for recovery.

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France to begin pulling out troops from Niger this week

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Paris says it is unable to work with putschists, leaving efforts to counter Islamists in Sahel in disarray

France will begin withdrawing troops from Niger this week following a coup in the west African country, in what marks a turning point in western nations’ efforts to counter a decade-long Islamist insurgency in the Sahel region.

“We will begin our disengagement operation this week, in good order, safely and in coordination with the Nigeriens,” the French military headquarters said.

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Mali jihadists kill dozens in twin attacks amid growing Islamist threat

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Group affiliated with al-Qaida target army base and Timbuktu river boat as violence surges in region

Al-Qaida-linked militants have killed at least 64 people in twin attacks on an army base and a crowded passenger boat on the Niger River in northern Mali.

Extremists from the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) appear to have targeted the Timbuktu boat on the river and an army position at Bamba, in the northern Gao region, with “a provisional toll of 49 civilians and 15 soldiers killed”, according to a government statement.

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Niger coup leaders warn against military intervention as west African leaders set to meet

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Heads of state will meet in Nigeria on Sunday where they will decide on further actions to pressure army leaders to restore constitutional order

Military leaders in Niger have warned against any armed intervention in the country, as west African leaders were set to meet on Sunday for an emergency summit to decide on further actions to pressure the army to restore constitutional order after a coup last week.

The heads of state of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the eight-member West African Economic and Monetary Union are set to meet in Nigeria, where they could suspend Niger from their institutions, cut off the country from the regional central bank and financial market, or close borders.

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US aid worker and French journalist freed after years held hostage in Africa

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Jeffery Woodke and Olivier Dubois, who had been kidnapped by jihadists in the Sahel, were released in Niger

A US aid worker and a French journalist who had been kidnapped by jihadists in the Sahel and held for years have been released.

American aid worker Jeffery Woodke and French freelancer Olivier Dubois emerged from a plane that landed on Monday at an airport in Niamey, the capital of Niger.

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While the focus is on Ukraine, Russia’s presence in the Sahel is steadily growing | Bruce Mutsvairo, Mirjam de Bruijn, Kristin Skare Orgeret

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With Russian mercenaries invited to Mali as European forces withdraw, how worried should the west be about Russia’s increasing influence across Africa?

Even in the turbulent, conflict-wracked Sahel region of Africa, the recent military takeover in Burkina Faso was intriguing. Amid the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation, the decision by neighbouring Mali’s military-led government to invite fighters from the Wagner Group, widely seen as a paramilitary network of mercenaries with Russian connections, is causing growing concern in many western capitals.

Mali’s transitional government faces a rough road to recognition after the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) announced a strengthening of economic and diplomatic sanctions in January in response to the proposal to postpone elections until at least 2026.

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Burkina Faso declares two days of mourning after 41 militia members killed

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The killings come amid escalating violence in the region, where a four-year Islamist insurgency has resulted in thousands of deaths

Authorities in Burkina Faso have declared a two-day period of mourning after suspected militants killed at least 41 members of a government-backed civilian militia in the country’s desert north this week.

A column of civilian fighters from the homeland defence volunteers (VDP), a group the government funds and trains to contain Islamist insurgents, was ambushed on Thursday as it swept a remote area in the northern Loroum province, authorities said on Saturday.

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Blowing the house down: life on the frontline of extreme weather in the Gambia

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A storm took the roof off Binta Bah’s house before torrential rain destroyed her family’s belongings, as poverty combines with the climate crisis to wreak havoc on Africa’s smallest mainland country

The windstorm arrived in Jalambang late in the evening, when Binta Bah and her family were enjoying the evening cool outside. “But when we first heard the wind, the kids started to run and go in the house,” she says.

First they went in one room but the roof – a sheet of corrugated iron fixed only by a timbere pole – flew off. They ran into another but the roof soon went there too.

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France says it has killed Islamic State leader in Greater Sahara

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Emmanuel Macron claims ‘another major success’ after death of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi

Emmanuel Macron has said French military forces have killed the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, claiming “another major success” in the fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel.

The French president, who recently moved to reduce French troop deployment in the troubled sub-Saharan region amid broad consensus that the intervention was not achieving its aim, gave no further details in his statement on Wednesday night, though he mentioned French casualties.

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Malaria trial shows ‘striking’ 70% reduction in severe illness in children

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A study in Burkina Faso and Mali suggests combining anti-malarial drugs and vaccination could reduce deaths and hospitalisations

A trial combining vaccinations and prevention drugs has substantially lowered the number of children dying of malaria in two African countries, according to researchers.

The results of the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, have been hailed as “very striking”, especially at a time when decades-long progress on combating malaria has stalled in some countries.

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‘An economic calamity’: Africa faces years of post-Covid instability

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Damage from pandemic could quash ambitions, exacerbate tensions and deepen repression in parts of continent

Analysts and experts are warning of many years of instability across Africa, possibly leading to wars and political upheavals, as the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic deepens across the continent.

Though many of the likely consequences are yet to become evident, recent unrest in southern Africa, increased extremist violence in the Sahel and growing instability in parts of west Africa can all be attributed in part to the outbreak, observers say.

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‘On bad days, we don’t eat’: Hunger grows for thousands displaced by conflict in Chad

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As war forces more to flee, humanitarian organisations facing funding shortfalls and increasing demand are unable to keep pace

The number of people having to leave their homes in the Lake Chad region of central Africa has more than doubled over the past year with agencies warning they are struggling to feed people.

The fighting, which last month claimed the life of the president of Chad, Idriss Déby, has displaced more than 400,000 Chadians, according to the International Organization for Migration, a rise from 169,000 at the start of 2020. More than 65,000 people were displaced in the first quarter of this year.

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Almost 30 million will need aid in Sahel this year as crisis worsens, UN warns

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Armed conflicts, the climate crisis and Covid-19 are contributing to chronic risk of food insecurity in the region, says Unocha report

A record 29 million people will need humanitarian assistance in the Sahel and the Lake Chad basin in 2021 amid a deepening crisis, a report by the UN office for humanitarian affairs (Unocha) has estimated.

Almost one in four people in the border areas of Burkina Faso, northern Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger and north-east Nigeria are expected to need aid in 2021, 5 million more than a year ago, and a 52% rise on 2019.

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Chad dictator’s death spells chaos in Islamist terror’s new ground zero | Simon Tisdall

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The west backed military solutions across the Sahel. With the death of President Idriss Déby, that strategy is helping to destabilise the region

The death in battle last week of Chad’s unloved dictator, Idriss Déby, has pushed the Sahel up the west’s political and media agenda. The sudden burst of interest is unlikely to last. The global attention span for this desperately poor, unstable and ill-governed region is chronically short. And yet the Sahel is, or soon could be, everyone’s problem.

A vast, arid swath of sub-Saharan Africa that comprises Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania and Burkina Faso (the so-called G5 Sahel), plus parts of neighbouring countries, the Sahel is where the world’s toughest challenges collide. The spread of jihadist terrorism, claiming record numbers of lives and posing a possible threat to Europe, is the most closely watched phenomenon.

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‘Out of Trump playbook’: UK accused of ‘abandoning’ women with cuts to aid

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Charity warns of 22,000 additional deaths in poorest countries if Wish reproductive health programme ends

The director of a leading sexual and reproductive health charity has accused the government of “abandoning” women and girls it promised to help, as aid cuts derail a leading Tory programme to reduce maternal deaths and prevent unsafe abortions in poor countries.

The threat to the women’s integrated sexual health (Wish) programme could mean 7.5m additional unintended pregnancies, 2.7m unsafe abortions and 22,000 maternal deaths over the next year, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

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Sub-Saharan Africa named riskiest investment region due to violence

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Annual global terror index highlights attacks in Mozambique and DRC and says human rights abuses are driving violence

Militant violence and abuses by security forces have made sub-Saharan Africa the riskiest region in the world for business and investors, a new report says.

Seven of the world’s 10 highest-risk countries for militant violence are in the region with significant deteriorations in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to the annual Terrorism Intensity Index released on Friday by risk consultants Verisk Maplecroft.

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Isis claims murder of French aid workers and their guides in Niger

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Six NGO staff and two local guides were ambushed in a nature reserve in August

The Islamic State extremist group has claimed responsibility for the murder of six French aid workers and their two local guides while they were visiting a nature reserve in the west African country of Niger.

The six French humanitarian workers, aged between 25 and 30, their guide and their driver were killed on 9 August in the Kouré national park, a wildlife haven 37 miles (60km) from Niger’s capital, Niamey.

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Militant crackdown in Sahel leads to hundreds of civilian deaths – report

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Amnesty records 200 state killings and forced disappearances in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, state members of internationally-backed G5 group

Hundreds of civilians have been killed by their own governments in Africa’s Sahel region since countries pledged a surge against militant groups at a regional meeting held by France in January.

Amnesty International said on Wednesday that it had documented 200 cases of unlawful state killings and forced disappearances in February and March in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which are members of the internationally backed G5 force set up to fight militants in the Sahel.

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West Africa facing food crisis as coronavirus spreads

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Pandemic adds to jihadi and climate change threats to present ‘immense challenge’ for region

More than 43 million people in west Africa are likely to be in urgent need of food assistance in the coming months – double initial estimates – as the Covid-19 outbreak accelerates, the World Food Programme has said.

Food insecurity could also double this year to affect 265 million people across the continent; west Africa, where the outbreak of the virus is most severe, is of increasing concern.

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The west ignores the growth of Islamic insurgents in Africa at its peril

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Thousands are being killed across the Sahel region in what is becoming the new battlefront with militants

Imagine the reaction in Britain if armed Islamist jihadists were to burst in on a Sunday church service in a Surrey village, spraying automatic weapon fire at the congregation and killing the vicar and at least 23 worshippers. Horror and fury would be unconfined. The attack would be an immediate worldwide media sensation.

This is exactly what happened to Protestant churchgoers in Pansi, a village in northern Burkina Faso, on 16 February – though you would hardly know it, judging by the ensuing international silence. The increasing frequency of such atrocities in Africa’s Sahel region is one possible explanation for this apparent indifference, although there are others.

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