United Nations — The combination of rife insecurity, food insecurity and more than 7.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance has left the Sahel a region in crisis, with the global coronavirus pandemic expected to exacerbate the situation.
The briefing, titled 'They Executed Some and Brought the Rest with Them: Civilian Lives at risk in the Sahel', details the grave reality in the region, especially across Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, including "at least 57 cases of extrajudicial executions or unlawful killings, and at least 142 cases of enforced disappearances" that have allegedly been committed by soldiers between February and April.
Rajasingham noted that between 2019 and now, the region experienced an exponential rise in its need for humanitarian assistance: with 7.5 million people in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali requiring assistance -- up from 6.1 million just a year ago.
According to Ousmane Diallo, a Sahel researcher at Amnesty International, the COVID-19 pandemic "is not the defining feature in the region due to its emergence but it constitutes another challenge that different governments must contend with".
"The governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have mobilised their security structures in an effort to respond to the rise in militant Islamist group violence," the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies said.
