Eigege Dooshima Ojima
The Sahel is the vast expansively-wide land area traversing West Africa. This region covers countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, Mauritania, Senegal, Chad, and Northern Nigeria. Much of the food coming to Nigeria are produced in the Central Sahel. But some of these countries are engulfed in armed conflicts and insurrections from terrorist groups. Besides loss of lives, the violence has led to huge displacement of people within and across borders. Also there is acute food insecurity as millions of people especially women and children are mostly affected.
Just last week, the jihadists unleashed heavy attacks on Bamako, the capital of Mali. Groups such as Boko Haram, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen, Islamic State in the Great Sahara, and many other ferocious groups are making life very difficult and complex to access humanitarian aid and essential commodities.
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project reports, an approximate 12,000 people were killed in the region in 2023 alone. Mali and Burkina Faso are the countries that are most affected. Schools, healthcare facilities, government and military establishments, civilians—including women and children—and essential infrastructure have all been the target of these attacks.
According to UNHCR, as of 31st July 2024, at least 3,120,078 million persons have been displaced within the Sahel region. During these three years, this rapid increase has turned into humanitarian emergencies. Due to the rising violence, daily lives and livelihoods disrupted, and many people are forced to evacuate from their homes, farms, and sources of income. There is a general sense of unease.
The majority of those displaced live under precarious conditions and without decent shelter, good access to clean water, or basic healthcare. This has, of course, put children, women, and the elderly in precarious situations, most of whom are prone to the vagaries of this displacement. Driven by continuous conflict and climate change, the Sahel’s food crisis has reached alarming levels. Agricultural activities have been thoroughly disrupted, leading to widespread food insecurity.
The situation remains particularly acute in Burkina Faso and Mali, where conflict has decimated local food production and disrupted supply chains. According to UNICEF in 2023, over 630,000 children under five in Burkina Faso alone suffer from acute malnutrition-a figure underlining the strong impact of the crisis on the most vulnerable.
Humanitarian organizations like the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontieres commonly known as Doctors Without Borders, among others, are struggling to reach those in need due to the volatile security situation. Access to the affected areas becomes increasingly restricted, and quite often, the armed groups target aid workers themselves.
The UN’s 2024 Sahel Humanitarian Response Plan appeals for $4.7 billion in funding to meet the crisis; as of August 2024, only 30% of this amount has been secured, according to the UNOCHA. As a result, this big funding gap has left many critical needs unmet and did much to increase the suffering of those affected by the conflict. Accordingly, the growing crisis is matched by rising military interventions from regional and international actors. The G5 Sahel Joint Force, created in 2014, deployed 5,000 soldiers across the region in 2017, while the French-led Operation Barkhane, launched in 2014, deployed 4,500 soldiers scattered between Mai, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad to fight against the jihadist threat. These interventions notwithstanding, security remains highly volatile, with violence diffusing across the region.
However, these humanitarian efforts can be expanded due to the widespread and dire situations of the impacted communities. The diplomatic efforts made in ensuring dialogue and peace initiatives, amongst others, from the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States should ensure they succeed. This will provide assured and sustainable solution to the crises, which has continued to destabilize the whole West African region.
Expanding humanitarian response should also include peacebuilding that will fundamentally address the root causes of conflict and terrorism in the Sahel. Poverty, failures in governance, and marginalization of communities can be effectively mitigated if governance is strengthened and rights of people are promoted. Resilient communities can only be built through investment in education, healthcare, and economic development that breaks the cycle of violence and poverty fuelling extremism in this region.
In brief, the perennial conflict and protracted violence in the Sahel has placed the region under severe humanitarian crises West Africa, and perhaps in the world. Public attention is not paid to the predicaments. With millions displaced, food insecurity at an unprecedented level, and with ongoing conflict, the situation does indeed need immediate and sustained international attention including Nigeria. Beyond the military intervention, a multi-sector response should focus on deepening humanitarian assistance and long-term strategies for peacebuilding and development that will ensure the people of Sahel have a more stable and secure future in prospect.
Dooshima is a 400-level student of International Relations at the Covenant University, and an Intern at the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Abuja. She writes via [email protected]
