SOS Faim, International Organisations Call on Leaders to Tackle Root Causes of Sahel Crisis

SOS Faim Luxembourg, a sustainable development non-profit organisation that fights hunger and poverty in rural areas in Africa, has joined fellow members of the People’s Coalition for the Sahel in calling on African and European leaders to "tackle the root causes of the crisis in the Sahel and better protect civilian populations".

Ahead of the European Union-African Union (EU-AU) Summit, which is taking place in Brussels, Belgium on 17 and 18 February 2022, the People’s Coalition for the Sahel, which SOS Faim joined at the end of 2021, released a joint declaration, of which the Luxembourg non-profit is a signatory.

SOS Faim and 29 other international signatories called on African and European leaders to promote a real, members of the People’s Coalition for the Sahel, call on African and European leaders, who are meeting this week at a summit in Brussels, to "promote a real civil awakening to tackle the root causes of the crisis in the Sahel and better protect civilian populations".

Whilst the signatories recognised that the Sahel is currently receiving a lot of attention, namely regarding a possible withdrawal of French and European troops from Mali and the arrival of Russian forces, the People’s Coalition for the Sahel argued that the needs of civilian populations, who continue to be the first victims of insecurity, seem to be "relegated to the background" by governments and international actors.

The coalition highlighted the fact that nearly 2,000 civilians have been killed in violence in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger over the past twelve months. Moreover, 2.5 million people have had to flee their homes, the majority of them children who are now out of school - twice as many as a year ago. The coalition added that fifteen million Sahelians depend on humanitarian aid, food insecurity is spreading at an alarming rate and access to basic services, such as healthcare, is still lacking. And yet, according to the coalition, only 48% of humanitarian needs are currently funded.

The People’s Coalition for the Sahel strongly condemned the proliferation of attacks on freedom of expression, whether it be mobile internet shutdowns in Burkina Faso or threats against journalists or members of civil society in Mali, Niger or Chad.

The signatories added that they took note of the declarations of Sahelian leaders in favour of respect for human rights and international humanitarian law. However, they "deplore[d] the continuation of impunity, which maintains the distrust of the populations and fuels the cycle of violence". They also took note of the "rare" communication from the French Chief of Staff on the death of four civilians during a military operation on 8 February 2022 in northern Burkina Faso, but "regret[ted] that France has still not responded to requests from civil society and the President of Niger to open an investigation into the death of three civilians on the sidelines of a demonstration against a French military convoy in Téra, Niger, last November".

The People’s Coalition for the Sahel also argued: "To continue to favour a security response that does not address the root causes of the crisis would be to repeat the mistakes that led to the current impasse".

The coalition concluded that the EU-EU Summit "should be the occasion for a new start for the Sahel and its partners". As such, the signatories noted that they would continue to measure the impact of the responses to the crisis and publish a series of updates of the indicators of their report "The Sahel: What Needs to Change" in the coming weeks.