According to diplomatic cables, Burkina Faso’s president privately admitted that some of his citizens may feel safer living among terrorists than with their own country’s security forces
think you’re safe,” says a 57-year-old resident of Doropo in northern Ivory Coast. “But jihadists are like ants, they can come in without being noticed.” On June 11th, just three weeks after Ivory Coast’s army reassuringly declared that its northern frontier with war-torn Burkina Faso was “under control”, a band of armed insurgents proved it wrong. Some 20 men on motorbikes descended on an army-and-police outpost near the border at Kafolo.
This war in the Sahel has been growing rapidly. Ten times more people were killed last year than in 2014 . Two main jihadist groups are behind most of the fighting: the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara ; and Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin , which is linked to al-Qaeda. These groups have extended their reach, even though thousands of international peacekeepers and local and Western soldiers have been deployed to stop them.
The weakness of governments and the feebleness of their public services are helping the jihadists. In the neglected hinterlands of the Sahel the rebels offer themselves as an alternate state, serving up sharia and medical aid. Some 70% of people in the northern reaches of Ghana are classed as very poor, compared with a national rate of 25%. Ghana and Ivory Coast face divisive elections. So do Burkina Faso and Niger.
Though the jihadists stunned many by the speed of their advance through Mali and Burkina Faso, they face a tougher fight in the coastal states. The security forces of Ivory Coast, Ghana and Senegal are beefier than those of their neighbours in the Sahel. But Togo and Benin offer the jihadists softer targets. And Ivory Coast’s army, made up of fighters who were on different sides in a vicious civil war, may prove brittle. A recent raid was scuppered after an Ivorian officer leaked the plans.
It is sometimes hard to avoid ruining livelihoods in the name of fighting terrorism. In northern Niger the authorities have banned motorbikes, which are the jihadists’ favourite mode of travel. But locals like to ride them to work. The authorities have annoyed people by closing markets and border crossings, raising youth unemployment.
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