Credit: UN News / Evan Schneider / Alpha Barry, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Burkina Faso, addresses the Security Council meeting on Peace and Security in Africa and the Joint Force of the Group of Five for the Sahel May 16, 2019. 

By Gary Raynaldo   DIPLOMATIC TIMES

UNITED NATIONS   NEW YORK  –   A surge of  deadly terror and criminal attacks in the Sahel region of Africa has sparked calls for an international military coalition similar to those in Afghanistan and Iraq to stem the tide of violence. The United Nation Security Council held a briefing on the Joint Force of the Group of five for the Sahel on Thursday on the security situation in the region.  In March,  more than 150 Fulani  were massacred as there seems to be no end in sight to ethnic and jihadist violence in west African nation Mali, despite the presence of thousands of French and UN Peacekeepers. The horrific attack occurred right at the moment  UN Security Council members were meeting in the west African nation on the future of the mandate of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) that is set to expire June 30, 2019.  Briefing the 15-member Council were five experts, including officials of the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union, who warned about security challenges confronting the G5 member States (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger).  They called for action to prevent the deteriorating situation from spreading through the continent, and stressed that an increased military presence in the  Sahel cannot resolve the  situation alone. There also must be a political solution, and pressing issues of unemployment, poverty, and education have to be addressed.

“Combating terror and crime in the Sahel is a collaborative action to be undertaken in the same international  effort as Afghanistan and Iraq,” Alpha Barry, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Burkina Faso said during the Security Council meeting.  He also urged the international community to take a stand on the situation in Libya, describing it as the main destabilizing element in the Sahel.

Barry said that despite encouraging progress, the situation in the  Sahel is deteriorating from the recent spate of terrorist attacks against churches, community leaders, and national armies.  Just last Sunday, gunmen killed six people including a priest as Mass was being celebrated in a church in Dablo in northern Burkina Faso. The attackers, said to number between 20 and 30, then burned down the church.

Photo by Gary Raynaldo / Anatolio Ndong Mba, Permanent Representative of Equatorial Guinea to the United Nations, speaks briefly outside Security Council chamber prior to attending briefing on the Joint Force of the Group of five for the Sahel May 16, 2019. 

“The Joint Force must also do more than combat terrorism in the long term, since a purely military approach cannot resolve the crisis.  With a massive military presence deployed from many countries operating in the Sahel, terrorists are preying on the situation, feeding a vicious cycle of violence.”

-Anatolio Ndong Mba, Permanent Representative of Equatorial Guinea to UN. 

It appears that Mr. Mba hit the nail on the  head, by pointing out to the Security Council that solely relying on an international military coalition is not the best solution to the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the Sahel region. One has to only look to the ongoing deadly violence in Afghanistan and Iraq despite an international coalition that included NATO deployed more than 20 years ago to combat terrorism. 

Source: European Parliamentary Research Service Blog. The brown strip is the region known as the Sahel, which runs east and west through large parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan,and into the Horn of Africa. The Sahel is the heart of France’s military counter-terrorism Operation Barkhane, which France claims is aimed at tackling the jihadist threat in that region. 

The Joint Force of the  Group of Five for the Sahel, which the group-Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger (G5 Sahel) decided to establish in February 2017 to combat terrorist and criminal groups in the region. 

Credit: UN News /  Loey Felipe /  Bintou Keita, Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations, briefs the Security Council meeting on Peace and Security in Africa and the Joint Force of the Group of Five for the Sahel May 15, 2019. 

“A security-driven approach alone will not be sufficient to combat violence in the region in a sustainable manner. It must go hand-in-hand with our collective and coordinated efforts and a broader strategy encompassing poverty reduction, good governance, development and humanitarian assistance and security interventions.”

-Bintou Keita, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, told the Council in her briefing.