Terrorists attacks in Tinzwaten Mali, Niger oil pipeline, Barsalogho Burkina Faso and Barkaram island... It should be remembered that the advent of terrorism and the war in Libya have exacerbated various forms of trafficking in the Sahel: mainly firearms, drugs, fuel, medicines, cigarettes, migrants and human beings. The worse the insecurity becomes, the more these scourges grow, increasing profits but also the number of their ghostly actors. In complicity with a number of official authorities, these war profiteers strive to perpetuate the conflicts that are ravaging the Sahel.
NATO's intervention in Libya in 2011 is considered one of the high points in the expansion of trafficking in the Sahel. Fighters from West and Central Africa, serving in Colonel Muammar Gaddafi various legions, started looted stocks of weapons of various calibers. Thus, they strengthened rebel movements particularly in Mali. They have thus facilitated the acquisition of weapons by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Oneness and Justice in West Africa (MUJAO), the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS), the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), Boko Haram, etc.
Mapping of actors.
Some of these weapons come from equipment diverted from poorly managed national arsenals as well as from arms trafficking stemming from the many conflicts that have shaken West Africa particularly in Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In addition, some ports in the sub-region are suspected of carrying out small arms trafficking activities. Attacks on barracks and then sporadic fighting constitute another source of supply. Numerous images of war spoils, published by Armed Terrorist Groups (ATGs), are one illustration of that. In complicity with former traffickers, these actors have plunged into the arms business. Some, among these Sahelian Pablo Escobars, the great Colombian godfather (1949-1993), have managed to link up with States. They have established themselves there, through investments in the legal economy, diversifying their activities and laundering their money in sectors such as transport and real estate in West Africa and the Maghreb. That political and economic influence allows them to gradually establish themselves in the institutional landscape of states open to that type of collaboration. In some countries, between 2017 and 2021, arms seizures increased by 105%, as regards assault rifles, according to the Regional Office for West and Central Africa of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), based in Dakar.
Money-hungry terrorists.
In a pragmatic mix of genres, terrorist groups have internalized the financial interest they could derive from this trafficking, approaching criminal groups. Officially, AQMI's violent actions are dressed up in religious attires and ideals. In practice, the group is more interested in profit, through its demands and parallel activities of organized crime and smuggling.
According to the American organization responsible for the fight against drugs, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), 60% of foreign terrorist groups have links with drug trafficking. Similarly, and according to the same source, 80% of Afghan Taliban leaders are more motivated by financial earnings drawn from poppy cultivation than by spiritual impulses. Part of that poppy, from which opium and heroin are extracted, transits through the Sahel, bribing officials before continuing its trajectory towards Europe. Other parts generally comes from Bombay (India), Colombia (70% of global cocaine production), and Brazil. Eager for higher incomes that drugs provide, traffickers multiply initiatives to prosper. Thus, cover companies and charitable associations, for the benefit of the poorest social classes, are established to protect their tracks.
Through artisanal gold panning, traffickers and terrorists obtain comfortable revenues. According to the Swiss NGO, Swiss Aid, that sector generated between 443 and 596 tons in 2022. Seventy percent of that gold leaves clandestinely from Africa to Middle East. In comparison, industrial gold has an average annual production of 500 tons.
Another fortune in the hands of traffickers is fuel, an easy, discreet and strategic commodity. Sahel states have difficulty regulating it, partly because it is sometimes transported in cans across borders, with the complicity of interested officials. The fuel passes through areas controlled by ATGs, who use it for their four wheels vehicles and their big-cylinder motorcycles.
A diversity of activities.
Diversifying their activities, traffickers are also parasitizing the medical sector. At least 605 tons of medical products were seized in West Africa between 2017 and 2021. It is estimated that 500,000 sub-Saharan Africans die from them each year. In October 2022, 70 Gambian children died of kidney failure after taking an illegal cough syrup. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued an alert, indicating that four children's products, manufactured in India, were contaminated. The incriminated laboratory, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, disputed WHO and the Gambian government accusations. That scandal provided proof that illicit medicines, produced in Asia and Africa, are freely sold in pharmacies.
The importance of cigarettes smuggling, another source of income for traffickers, should also be noted. Highly profitable, they come from clandestine factories and are distributed in the Sahel, the Maghreb, the Middle East and Europe. The GATs are getting richer, in particular by imposing a kind of tax in return for security escorts to smugglers. Traffickers also provide modern slaves. Victims of migrant traffickers and human trafficking make perilous journeys from the Sahel to North Africa and Europe. Migrant trafficking remains a well-paid activity.
In the former G5 Sahel countries, interviewed smugglers have reported earning, on average, 1,500 US dollars per month. That « income » is much higher than that of regular jobs in the sub-region. With the Covid-19 pandemic and a greater demand for forced labor, smugglers' fees have increased, starting from the countries of departure. The increased risks, linked to the tightening of administrative controls, had the effect of increasing their services costs
Human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor is often linked to gold mining in artisanal sites, trafficking in human organs, drugs and firearms. A report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) indicates that some victims are subjected to kidnapping for ransom, torture, and then many forms of physical and psychological abuse.
In the Mediterranean, too many lives are lost: 20,000 deaths between 2014 and the first quarter of 2023. Despite these deadly crossings, hundreds of migrants and refugees continue to flock to ports of embarkation, trying to reach Europe, via the Mediterranean or the Canary Islands. Europe remains a strong pole of attraction.
The fight against traffickers.
The Sahel countries are confronting terrorism and violent extremism and also various forms of trafficking, with the support of various partners. West African countries launched the Accra Initiative (Ghana) in September 2017. They have deployed joint operations, initiated confidence-building efforts in sensitive areas and called for the operationalization of a multilateral joint force of 10,000 soldiers. The creation by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger of the Alliance of Sahel States on 16 September 2023, followed by that of the Confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States on 6 July 2024, seems to have dampened that enthusiasm. These three countries are among the epicenters of terrorism. Their distrust of the Accra Initiative, perceived as an instrument of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), effectively paralyzes it.
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In partnership with the United Nations, the countries of the region are seeking to strengthen the resilience of border communities and facilitate the return of displaced persons to their places of origin. The African Union initiative, "Silencing the Guns", also contributes to the fight against traffickers by providing these states with technical assistance in the area of small arms control. For its part, UNODC regularly joins forces with partners such as INTERPOL to stifle the multiple supply routes. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) provides direct support to Sahel countries, aimed at reducing civilian harm and responding to human rights violations. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) addresses the structural causes of state instability with a particular focus on cross-border fragility.
A trafficking network has been woven across the Sahel, a long cordon of nearly 6,000 kilometers, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and home to more than 300 million souls. The fight against this scourge requires global mobilization, given the scale of its tentacles...
