It’s going to get grimmer in the Sahel

Draw an arc across Africa south of the Sahara, and it passes through not just a belt of junta-run countries but the most conflict-ridden region in the world. This arid stretch, known as the Sahel, takes in jihadist conflict in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger; rampant banditry in northern Nigeria; the fight against the terrorists of Boko Haram and its offshoots by four countries around Lake Chad; civil war in Sudan; smouldering ethnic conflict in northern Ethiopia; and, to the south, the terrorists of al-Shabab in Somalia.

The devastation is shocking. In Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, known as the central Sahel, more than 10,000 people were killed in armed conflict in 2022. By September 2023 that total had already been surpassed. In northern Nigeria, more than 7,000 people were killed in 2022. In five months of conflict in Sudan more than 9,000 people were slaughtered. A conservative tally of the number of people forced from their homes in the region, excluding Somalia, comes to 15m..

There will be no sudden silencing of the guns in 2024. The conflict in the central Sahel—in which jihadists linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State attack civilians, fight against government forces and each other—will probably grow even more violent. Jihadists see the recent coup in Niger as a chance to gain ground from a distracted army, and the army will then probably pursue a more scorched-earth approach against jihadism.

In Burkina Faso the government’s “total war” strategy, which involves arming tens of thousands of men in civilian militias, is already spiralling into chaos and spurring ethnic massacres. And in Mali over 10,000 UN peacekeepers will leave by the end of 2023, having been blamed for failing to stop the jihadists. A peace deal they had, in fact, been helping to maintain between the government and Tuareg separatists—a related but distinct conflict to that with jihadists—is already collapsing into open war.

In Sudan further clashes are almost certain between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group, as is more ethnic cleansing in Darfur. The two at least have clear leaders, holding out the possibility, however remote, of a sudden peace deal, in a way that is impossible to imagine in the jihadist conflicts elsewhere.

Though most of these conflicts are separate, some countries such as Niger are battered by more than one. Refugees spill in all directions. Some wars are spreading. In Ethiopia the fighting between Tigray and the government officially ended, but clashes with other ethnic groups, such as the Amhara and Oromo, appear to be spiralling. And states such as Benin and Togo are already suffering attacks from jihadists crossing over from Burkina Faso.

All this violence has gone hand in hand with political chaos, most recently through coups in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Sudan. If the violence spreads in 2024, expect political chaos to do so as well. ■

Kinley Salmon, Africa correspondent, The Economist, Dakar