West Africa had almost 1,800 attacks in the first six months of the year, resulting in nearly 4,600 deaths and catastrophic humanitarian effects, according to a top regional official, which is only “a snippet of the horrendous impact of insecurity.”
On Tuesday, Omar Touray reminded the United Nations Security Council that half a million individuals in the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are refugees, with almost 6.2 million internally displaced.
Without proper international intervention, the 30 million people in the region in need of food might rise to 42 million by the end of August, he noted.
Touray, the president of the ECOWAS Commission, blamed the region’s insecurity on organized crime, armed insurrection, illegitimate government changes, illegal marine activities, environmental crises, and fake news.
He said the region is worried about the resurgence of the military, with three countries – Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea – under military rule.
“The reversal of democratic gains runs parallel to insecurity that West Africa and the Sahel have been facing for some time now,” said Touray, a former Gambian foreign minister.
Between January and June 30, there were 2,725 attacks in Burkina Faso, 844 in Mali, 77 in Niger and 70 attacks in Nigeria that all led to 4,593 deaths, according to Touray.
He added that attacks in Benin and Togo which have coastlines on the Atlantic Ocean are a “stark indication of the expansion of terrorism to littoral states, a situation that poses an additional threat to the region”.
ECOWAS military chiefs of staff have held consultations to strengthen a regional standby force “in a manner that will enable it to support member states in the fight against terrorism and against threats to constitutional order”, he said.
Touray said the military chiefs proposed two options, establishing a 5,000-strong brigade at an annual cost of $2.3bn or deployment of troops on demand at an annual cost of $360m.
He reiterated the African Union’s request for African peace operations to receive funding from the UN regular budget, to which all 193 UN member states contribute.
According to Touray, the military staff recommendations were made before Mali’s military government ordered that the 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping force leave, which was followed by the Security Council’s unanimous vote on June 30 to cease the mission immediately. Mali has brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group to assist in the fight against armed groups.
Touray informed the UN Security Council that ECOWAS leaders intend to have an exceptional session on peace and security by the end of August, which will be headed by Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s new president, who took over as the bloc’s chair in July.
The UN Security Council was also briefed by Leonardo Santos Simao, the new head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), who stated that the security situation in the central Sahel, particularly the border region of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, “has deteriorated further, with multiple attacks against civilians and defense and security forces.”
Simao urged “robust and decisive support” for the ECOWAS action plan to combat Sahelian insecurity.
The US, according to Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood, “remains gravely concerned by democratic backsliding across the region” and is “deeply concerned by the spread of instability in coastal West Africa.”
He charged the Wagner Group with “human rights violations and endangering the safety and security of civilians and peacekeepers.”
