Refugee and humanitarian crisis in the Sahel

In my last post I provided you with an overview of the overall refugee crisis as well as some details on what is going on in Myanmar and China (https://wanderluststeffy.com/2020/02/08/overview-of-the-global-refugee-situation-and-refugee-crises-in-asia/ ). This time, I would like to focus on the Sahel region.

The Sahel

The Sahel is a region between the Sarah in the north and the humid Savannah in the south stretching from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The region includes amongst others parts of Nigeria, Chad, Mali, Sudan and Eritrea. The problems in this region are diverse:

1. Extreme poverty and shortage of food: the countries in the Sahel region are the poorest in the world with a lack of job opportunities. In 2018 33 million people in Sahel have been declared food-insecure by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation.
2. Climate Change: the Sahel region is over proportionally impacted by the climate change. It seems that in this region the temperature is increasing 1,5 times faster than global average resulting in even greater shortage of food and less accessible grass for the cattle, while 50 million people rely on their cattle. This causes many violent conflicts.
3. Most countries are severely instable and conflicts between non-state armed groups and security forces have become normal in most countries.
4. The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (local branch of ISIS) is controlling many areas in the Sahel and is terrorising the population and executing attacks regularly.

Of course, the situation in each country has its specialities and reasons and different groups are involved or even terrorists like Boko Haram in Nigeria or other ISIS-affiliated groups like in Burkina Faso or Mali. So, I am only providing a high-level overview of what is going on in the region without providing details on the reasons/rivalry groups of each individual country.Overall, violence has increased in the last years, as well as the number of refugees. Many people who are fleeing stay in their own country, while others flee to neighbouring countries, which are as well suffering from poverty and violence.Refugee numbersPlease find following, the number of refugees in selected countries from the end of 2018. I could not find updated numbers, but it is certain, that the numbers have been increasing tremendously over the last year. According to the UN, the number of internally displaced people has increased by 1.200 % in Burkina Faso over the last year resulting in over 600.000 IDPs only in Burkina Faso. (Data February 2020) 

Nigeria: 

Mali:

Current actions being taken:

The UN is stepping up its efforts to combat the crisis. The chief of the UN refugee agency just visited three countries in the Sahel region beginning of February. (see UN article below) The UN refugee agency is mainly providing humanitarian support to the refugees reaching from shelter to food, but there is a lack of donations to ensure an adequate supply.  Of course, there are also NGOs trying to help as much as possible, but the situation remains highly critical.France has already stationed many soldiers in the Sahel region to combat Islamic terrorists but has been experiencing many negative resentments and even anti-French protests especially end of last year by different groups in the Sahel region who do not want interference by a “colonial power”. Even Fake news was spread, that France is delivering weapons directly to the Islamists. However, Macron met with some presidents of the African countries as well as the UN in January, where they jointly agreed to step up French support in the combat against the terrorists. Other countries are more reluctant to actively contribute to the fight against terrorists. The US even intents to withdraw their troops from the region though terrorism is increasing.

Further info on the Sahel:
https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/fr/sahel—the-worlds-most-neglected-and-conflict-ridden-region/index.html
UN article:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1056782