More deaths and more Islamist attacks. That’s the reality in Burkina Faso and Mali, where data shows that civilians are now less safe after the coups that promised to end insecurity. Report by natashabooty
"It's warfare between an army and a clandestine army" and in large swathes of these countries "the staying power of the state is not there", argues political scientist Abdourahmane Idrissa, based at the University of Leiden.
Since then under the new junta, Mr Sawadogo says, the armed forces have been promised better conditions, more resources plus an anti-terrorism strategy review - "but that hasn't fixed the problem". French troops were called in to tackle the insurgency the following year, with Malians initially welcoming the intervention by its former coloniser.after falling out with junta, and Mali has also decided to quit the multi-national G5 Sahel force that was jointly created to fight the jihadists.
Mr Moncrieff agrees that since the start of the year Mali's army has been taking "a much more front-foot approach and taken the fight to the jihadist groups", probably because they feel "emboldened by the support of Russian mercenaries and an influx of weapons - much of them from Moscow".