ADDIS ABABA, Feb 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The African Union (AU) has announced the temporary deployment of a 3,000-strong force in West Africa’s Sahel region where countries have struggled to combat multiple armed groups amid a swiftly deteriorating security situation.
Smail Chergui, head of the AU’s Peace and Security Commission, said the decision was taken during the bloc’s annual summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, last month.
“On the decision of the summit to work on deploying a force of 3,000 troops to help the Sahel countries degrade terrorist groups, I think this is a decision that we’ll be working on together with the G5 Sahel and ECOWAS,” Chergui told a news conference, referring to a 5,000-member joint force put together by regional countries and the bloc of West African states, respectively.
“I think this decision was taken because as we see, as you can recognise yourself, the threat is expanding, it’s becoming more complex.”
A localised revolt that began in northern Mali in 2012 has spread to the centre of the country and to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
About 4,000 people died in the three countries last year, a five-fold increase compared with 2016, according to the United Nations figures.
Last week, the UN said more than 4,000 people in Burkina Faso are being forced to flee as attacks on civilians by armed groups increase in number and frequency.
Many parts of the Sahel, a semi-arid swathe of land beneath the Sahara, that have seen the most fighting are severely underdeveloped. The several armed groups operating in the region, including the Daesh group and al-Qaeda, have exploited poverty as well as religious and ethnic divisions for recruitment.
Meanwhile, the military campaigns by the ill-equipped national armies have also been marred by human rights abuses, which analysts say have pushed some civilians into the arms of fighters.
The bloodshed has escalated despite the presence of a 13,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in Mali, and rattled coastal countries to the south of the Sahel.
In early February, France, a former colonial power, announced it was expanding its military presence in the region and sending an additional 600 troops to its existing 4,500-strong mission.
Paris said the reinforcement would allow it to increase the pressure against Daesh in the Greater Sahel.
Edward Xolisa Makaya, South Africa’s ambassador to the AU, said he hoped the Sahel deployment would take place “during the course of the year”.
Makaya said no countries had come forward to volunteer troops, and it was also unclear how the deployment would be financed. — NNN-AGENCIES
