At a time when the international community's attention is focused on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Africa has traditionally remained out of the spotlight. Although "forgotten conflicts" such as those in Ethiopia and Sudan have in fact claimed more victims. Moreover, when it comes to terrorism, the media focus is usually on the Middle East, and attacks in Europe cause a wave of condemnation. In contrast to the Sahel, where last year more people were killed in terrorist attacks than in all other regions combined, writes BTA.
North Africa, and more specifically the Sahel - the region south of the Sahara desert - is gripped by instability due to the presence of jihadist groups linked to "Al Qaeda" and "Islamic State". The fight against them is hampered by the unstable situation in many of the countries there, the weakness of the institutions, the vast, difficult-to-control area and the semi-desert terrain.
The Global Terrorism Index, published earlier this week, identifies the Sahel as the "epicentre of global terrorism", the BBC reported.
A total of 3,885 people were killed in terrorist attacks in the region last year, out of a total of 7,555 worldwide. That is, the Sahel accounts for a little more than half of the victims (over 51.4%).
And while on a global scale, there is a positive trend of a decrease in the number of people killed in terrorist attacks from the peak of 11,000 in 2015 - the year when the attacks in Paris on November 13 shook the world, in the Sahel, which remains in limbo, the exact opposite is observed: in the region south of the Sahara, the number of victims has increased 10 times since 2019.
The authors of the index from the Australian Institute for Economics and Peace explain this contrast with the fact that rebel and extremist groups "continue to shift their focus" to the Sahel.
"This highlights the geographical shift of the epicenter of terrorism away from the Middle East to the Sahel", emphasize researchers from the Sydney-based think tank, quoted by Agence France-Presse.
In contrast, in the Western world, where the activity of these terrorist organizations has been limited, there has been an increase in attacks by "lone wolves" such as those in Germany recently.
Three Sahel countries - Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger - have consistently ranked first in terms of number of victims since 2017. It should be noted that an anti-Western military coup has been carried out in each of these former French colonies in West Africa since then. The juntas that came to power, which in the meantime have become closer to Russia and China, have not managed to deal with the problem.
Burkina Faso remains in first place in the sad index for the second year in a row. Moreover, the country has the most deaths in terrorist attacks - 1,532. However, this still represents a slight decline compared to the previous year, 2023, when the victims were 1,935, according to AFP.
Mali "loses" one position, and is now in fourth place, with 604 deaths in terrorist acts. Niger is fifth, but it registered the highest increase in victims last year - by as much as 94% to 930.
The top ten includes Burkina Faso, Pakistan, Syria, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Israel, Afghanistan and Cameroon.
Previously, in the 14 years since it was calculated, the index was headed by only two countries - Iraq and Afghanistan. This is also indicative of the shift of the epicenter of global terrorism from the Middle East to the Sahel.
Experts quoted by the BBC summarize that the military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger were greeted with some hope that the fight against jihadists would improve, but in fact the armies are supposedly unable to govern effectively. As a result, groups linked to "Al Qaeda" and "Islamic State", have increased the territories they control in the three countries.
The Sahel stretches from the west coast of Africa in an eastward direction. According to the definition used in calculating the index, the region includes parts of 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, Nigeria, Chad and Mauritania.
In addition to the reasons mentioned at the beginning, another factor that favors the spread of terrorism is the rapid population growth and the lack of prospects for young people. Nearly two-thirds of the Sahel population is under the age of 25, BTA writes.
In addition, the region is increasingly becoming an alternative transit route for cocaine trafficking from Latin America to Europe.
And terrorism has one extremely dangerous characteristic: it does not recognize state borders and spreads extremely quickly. According to experts quoted by the BBC, its further spread in Africa is simply a matter of time. They specifically mention two countries on the western coast of the continent - Benin and Togo. By the way, in Togo last year 10 attacks were recorded, claiming 52 victims - the most since the index was calculated.
The fight against terrorism is doomed without goodwill on the part of the countries concerned, cooperation between their armed forces and rapid exchange of intelligence information. Plus measures to improve the socio-economic situation in the longer term.