(December 9, 2024)
According to the bloc, the departure of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger becomes effective one year after the announcement, in January 2025.
The trio have formed the Alliance of Sahel States after severing ties with France and pivoting towards Russia.
(September 28, 2023)
Burkina‘s military leaders earlier this month signed a mutual defence pact with counterparts in Mali and Niger.
(September 28, 2023)
Since the country’s first coup in January 2022, the number of people killed by Islamic extremists has nearly tripled compared with the 18 months before, according to a recent report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
(17.09.2023)
All three countries have undergone coups since 2020, most recently Niger, where soldiers in July overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum.
The West African regional bloc ECOWAS has threatened to intervene militarily in Niger over the coup.
Mali and Burkina Faso quickly responded by saying that any such operation would be deemed a “declaration of war” against them.
(12 Oct 2022)
On September 30, Captain Ibrahim Traore led a coup to become Burkina Faso’s new leader, deposing Paul Henri-Damiba, who had only come to power in January through his own coup.
All three countries have undergone coups since 2020, most recently Niger, where soldiers in July overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum.
The West African regional bloc ECOWAS has threatened to intervene militarily in Niger over the coup.
Mali and Burkina Faso quickly responded by saying that any such operation would be deemed a “declaration of war” against them.
All three states were members of the France-supported G5 Sahel alliance joint force with Chad and Mauritania, launched in 2017 to tackle extremists in the region.
Mali has since left the dormant organisation after a military coup, while deposed Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum said in May last year that the force is now “dead” following Mali’s departure.
(August 22, 2023)
The situation is complicated by the fact that three other members of the 15-member ECOWAS are suspended because they have had their own military coups in recent years. These countries — Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, all former French colonies in the Sahel — have indicated they may side with Niger’s military government in the event of a war.
The CFA franc zone consists of 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, each affiliated with one of two monetary unions. Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo comprise the West African Economic and Monetary Union, or WAEMU, founded in 1994 to build on the foundation of the West African Monetary Union, founded in 1973. The remaining six countries — Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon — comprise the Central African Economic and Monetary Union, or CAEMC.
These two unions maintain the same currency, the CFA franc, which stands for Communauté Financière Africaine (African Financial Community) within WAEMU and Coopération Financière en Afrique Centrale (Financial Cooperation in Central Africa) within CAEMC. WAEMU and CAEMC account for 14 percent of Africa’s population and 12 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
The junta led by Brig. Gen. Abdrahmane Tchiani ordered the Nigerien armed forces to go on maximum alert over “threats of aggression to the national territory” and asked the military-led governments of neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso to send troops to help defend them.
Western allies are pressuring Nigerian President Bola Tinubu to take a tough stance against the new Niger junta. But lawmakers back home have signalled they are against using Nigerian troops.
Mali said it and Burkina Faso, both neighbours of Niger run by military juntas, were sending delegations to Niger to show support. Both countries have said they would consider any intervention in Niger as a declaration of war against them.
I might also say that the – you know, the threats of other countries supporting the coup leaders – those are even more risible than the threat of invasion.
INSKEEP: Oh, meaning that other countries aren‘t – they don‘t have very many resources to make much of a difference even if they do want to support.
PHAM: Well, no. I mean, yes, definitely. For example, Burkina Faso, which has been very vocal, it‘s gone through two coups in recent years – very vocal in its support of the junta in Niger.
(07.08.2023)
A military source told CNN that Niger‘s armed forces brought in a convoy of about 40 pick-up trucks from other parts of the country on Sunday evening.
The U.S. has evacuated some staff from its embassy in the capital in Niamey, while the estimated 1,000 American troops stationed in the country were restricted to their bases.
Two neighbouring countries, Mali and Burkina Faso, have experienced coups triggered by jihadist uprisings in recent years.
In both countries the new military leaders have fallen out with France, the former colonial power, which also formerly ruled Niger.
African Union, United Nations Should Press for Credible, Independent Inquiry
Demnach sollen sich bis zu 60 deutsche Soldaten an der EU Military Partnership Mission Niger (EUMPM Niger) beteiligen, die die nigrischen Streitkräfte ausbilden und sie beim Ausbau ihrer Strukturen unterstützen wird. Niger, dessen Präsident Mohamed Bazoum klar prowestlich orientiert ist, soll sich als Anker für den Westen in der Sahelzone erweisen, nachdem Mali eine enge Kooperation mit Russland eingegangen ist und sich auch Burkina Faso von den Mächten Europas ab- und Moskau zuzuwenden beginnt.
Another accused the Burkinabe army of the massacre, saying he saved his life by covering himself with the blood of corpses.
Residents of the nearby town of Ouahigouya also said they saw the battalion pass through towards Karma and return on April 23 before heading to the capital Ouagadougou, Amnesty said.
„The army had cordoned off the roads, blocking access, until April 24. It was only after that date that some people were able to return to Karma and the surrounding villages, where the violence had taken place, to identify the victims and help the families bury their loved ones,“ said Diallo.
The CISC published a first communiqué on April 27, stating that 136 bodies had been found in Karma, including „50 women and 21 children, among them babies under 30 days old killed on their mothers’ backs“
(April 8, 2023)
Forty-four civilians have been killed by “armed terrorist groups” in two villages in north-eastern Burkina Faso, near the Niger border, a regional governor said Saturday.
Burkina’s beleaguered army has recently acquired foreign-made drones, and regularly issues video footage of strikes against purported terrorists and troops described as reconquering and securing lost territory.
(10 October 2022)
Although fairly small in number, it has prompted speculation that there may have been some Russian involvement in the events that saw Captain Ibrahim Traoré seize power in a nation beset by growing jihadist violence. (…)
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, has been more forthright in his observations: „Our people helped the new leader [of Burkina Faso].
„Another African country will move from co-operation with France to an alliance with Russia.“
(June 13, 2022)
Armed men killed at least 100 civilians in a rural district of northern Burkina Faso close to the border with Niger over the weekend, a security source said.
The attackers targeted men but appeared to spare women and children in Seytenga district on Saturday night, the security source and two other sources said, all speaking on condition of anonymity.
(Jan 25, 2022)
One of the Burkina Faso president’s final acts in office was refusing to sanction the use of Russian paramilitaries on his soil.
The leader of this week’s successful military coup against him was the very man who tried to pressure him into accepting help from Moscow, sources in the former president’s camp told The Daily Beast.
The attack in Burkina Faso last month that killed 160 civilians was in retaliation for activity by pro-government civilian militias in the area, according to Human Rights Watch.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his counterparts from Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger jointly met with General Mahamat Idriss Deby before the funeral of his father, a presidential official said.
After some hints to the contrary, it turns out French troops in the Sahel aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. So said President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on February 16, even before his virtual summit with France’s former-colonial „partners“ – Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Chad – comprising the G5 Sahel Joint Force. Formed in 2014, it’s described in bureaucratic Paris-speak as „an intergovernmental cooperation framework, in order to put forward a regional response to the various challenges.“ In reality, the G5 are little more than a misfit crew of problematic proxies doing the bidding of the French generals leading a seven years-running Operation Barkhane – and that of America’s AFRICOM proconsuls propping-up Paris’s pet forever war in the Sahel.
Soldiers in Niger executed dozens of civilians during the counterinsurgency campaign against jihadists in the country‘s troubled Tillaberi region earlier this year, a probe into the deaths reported.
Niger, Mali und Burkina Faso gehen militärisch gegen Dschihadisten vor. Die UNO-Mission in Mali (Minusma) hatte Anfang April den Armeen der drei Sahel-Staaten eine Zunahme von Vergehen vorgeworfen. So habe die malische Armee zwischen Januar und März 101 Menschen ohne ein Gerichtsverfahren hingerichtet, die nigrische Armee habe sich auf malischem Boden etwa 30 außergerichtlicher Hinrichtungen schuldig gemacht.
(20.06.2013)
Der Friedensforscher Andreas Buro vom Komitee für Grundrechte und Demokratie geht davon aus, dass es bei der militärischen Intervention in Mali nicht nur um den Kampf gegen Islamisten geht. Es handelt sich in seinen Augen auch nicht um ein kurzlebiges Ereignis, sondern der Krieg um Mali soll nach dem Willen der westlichen Führungsmächte eine EU-europäische Angelegenheit werden, Mali sowie die ganze Sahelzone soll zur Einflusssphäre der EU werden.
Damit einher geht für Andreas Buro eine zukünftige Aufgabenteilung des Westens. Die USA werden sich mehr dem Pazifik zuwenden und die EU soll Afrika übernehmen.
Das EUTM-Mandatsgebiet wird zudem auf alle G5-Sahelstaaten – Mauretanien, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger und Tschad – ausgeweitet. Damit wird dem grenzübergreifenden Agieren der Terroristen Rechnung getragen.
Niemand würde in Abrede stellen, dass die Franzosen und ihre wüstenerprobten Fremdenlegionäre den Fall des Vielvölkerstaates Mali in die Hände der Salafisten verhindert haben. Die Uno-Truppe Minusma nimmt dagegen nur defensive Aufgaben wahr.
Dessen ungeachtet stößt die französische Truppenpräsenz in den fünf betroffenen Ländern auf wachsenden Widerstand der Bevölkerungen.
The „partnership‘s“ substance and objectives are still rather nebulous. Apparently, it will be the third attempt since 2013 to strongly enhance the repressive activities. Merkel, in any case, has announced that „the troops and police forces of the G5 countries“ should be each „reinforced nationally.“
The currency has been criticized for making economic planning for the developing countries of French West Africa all but impossible since the CFA‘s value is pegged to the euro (whose monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank).[3] Others disagree and argue that the CFA „helps stabilize the national currencies of Franc Zone member-countries and greatly facilitates the flow of exports and imports between France and the member-countries“.[4] The European Union‘s own assessment of the CFA‘s link to the euro, carried out in 2008, noted that „benefits from economic integration within each of the two monetary unions of the CFA franc zone, and even more so between them, remained remarkably low“ but that „the peg to the French franc and, since 1999, to the euro as exchange rate anchor is usually found to have had favourable effects in the region in terms of macroeconomic stability“
CFA franc. These two words probably do not mean much to most readers, but they encapsulate one of the world’s most enduring – and little-known – economic experiments. In the simplest possible terms, the CFA franc is a currency used by 14 countries of Western and Central Africa, all of which are former French colonies.
Unabhängig davon hat Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel angekündigt, die militärische Präsenz Deutschlands und der EU im Sahel weiter zu verstärken. So sollen die Außen- und Verteidigungsminister der Union bei ihrem Zusammentreffen mit ihren Amtskollegen aus der „G5 Sahel“ (Mauretanien, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Tschad) am 15. Mai neue Maßnahmen zur Unterstützung der „G5 Sahel“-Eingreiftruppe beschließen. Zudem stellt Berlin zehn Millionen Euro für die Ausstattung von Polizei und Gendarmerie Burkina Fasos bereit. In das Land wird die Bundeswehr darüber hinaus eine „Beratergruppe“ entsenden, die burkinische Militärs schulen soll
Terrorgruppen treiben ihr Unwesen, genau wie in den anderen Sahel-Staaten, die Merkel heute bereist: Mali und in Niger.
Auch von dort sind die Staatschefs nach Burkina Faso gekommen, dazu noch aus Mauretanien und dem Tschad. Die sogenannte G5-Sahel Allianz – ein Zusammenschluss von Ländern, die mit zahlreichen Problemen zu kämpfen haben.
(28.04.2019)
(14.01.2019)
Im Halbjahresbericht der UN zum Sahel und zu Westafrika wird einer wachsenden Sorge wegen der Militarisierung der Region durch Frankreich und die USA Ausdruck gegeben. Während die Militäreinsätze erhöht werden, steigt die Feindseligkeit der dortigen Bevölkerung gegenüber den Militärs, so der Bericht. Es fehle an Entwicklungsperspektiven für die Region.
An den undemokratischen Zuständen in Ägypten stören sich weder EU noch Bundesregierung. Diktator Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi lässt das Parlament derzeit an einem Gesetz arbeiten, das ihm die Präsidentschaft bis 2034 garantieren soll. Regelmäßig gibt es Berichte von schwersten Menschenrechtsverbrechen. Auch im Hinblick auf alle anderen Staaten, deren Polizeiorganisationen zwecks Flüchtlingsabwehr von Deutschland oder EU gesponsert werden, berichten etwa Amnesty International und Human Rights Watch von immer wiederkehrenden willkürlichen Festnahmen, Folter und Zensur.