A swift look at the suffering of the Sahel region, after the 30th coup d’état in Burkina Faso, which replaced the Interim President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba by Captain Ibrahim Traore. This followed the January 2022 coup, allegedly because Damiba had failed to deal with Islamist jihardists. It thus poses the open question whether the new team will do better.
A text by Richard Skretteberg was helpful to understand a region on the edge of disaster.
The Sahel countries belong to the world’s poorest. The UN Human Development Index listed Niger last, with Burkina Faso and Mali just above. Increasing violence had displaced over four million individuals by 2019. In particular Mali and Burkina Faso had been affected, as well as districts near Lake Chad including parts of Niger. Thus in Mali the number of warring groups had increased over years, the violence spreading to neighbouring states. Another example is Cameroon, where the insurgent Boko Haram had driven out hundreds of thousands around areas bordering Nigeria. North African countries are also affected.
With civilians caught up in this violence, an exodus from the Sahel zone resulted. Many displaced people had embarked on the dangerous escape route across the Mediterranean to Europe, which had cost several thousands their lives. Response to this human crisis has not been exactly positive: a major part of resources allocated to the issue enforced border control, aimed at combating the inflow of desperate people.
Experts’ reports attribute this crisis to the deep regional poverty, poor food production, high population growth and climate change. Such problems cannot be ignored, but must be tackled internationally! The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has already said that 33 million were considered as food-insecure.
It is hardly a secret that climate change has already caused havoc in the region. The UN estimated that 80% of the Sahel belt’s agricultural lands had been affected. Furthermore, the region experiences a rising temperature rate 1 ½ times above the worldwide average. In 2019 the World Economic Forum declared that by 2050 the average would increase at least 3% from 35 degrees.
This will devastate the Sahel. More than 50 million are nomads, who depend on their cattle, as grass becomes increasingly scarce. Inevitably this already had caused conflict between the nomads and farmers in several countries, leading to thousands of deaths year after year.
One can only hope the Sahel belt will no longer be ignored. Is it not essential that instead of assisting warring groups, efforts should become more successful in ending conflicts to arrive at peaceful solutions? Resources must be made available for education for both sexes, health structures and job opportunities, while also combating corruption.
Saving Sahel would stop a humanitarian tragedy!