(Bloomberg) -- Former Senegalese President Macky Sall said Africa’s fight against terrorism should be a global concern and the continent isn’t getting enough support in its effort to combat the scourge.
“Africa has been left to its own devices to face the challenges of terrorism, whether in the Sahel region on the Horn of Africa or even in southern Africa in Mozambique,” Sall said in an address to the Future Resilience Forum, which aims to find solutions to security threats, climate change and other global challenges, in London on Monday. “The advance of terrorism on the continent isn’t just an African affair. It would be a mistake to believe that it’s up to Africans to resolve this issue.”
West Africa’s Sahel region has emerged as a global terrorism hotspot, with insurgents wreaking havoc and trying to seize power across a range of countries. While Western powers, including the US and France, had contributed troops and funding to try and help prop up elected governments, their presence and influence has diminished since juntas seized power in nations including Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Niger’s military government earlier this year ordered the US to leave a strategic drone base in the country’s center, while Mali’s junta has asked a United Nations peacekeeping mission to wrap up a decades-long deployment. UN peacekeepers are also expected to withdraw thousands of troops from Democratic Republic of Congo over coming months after a 25-year deployment that’s been the longest and costliest in the organization’s history.
UN peacekeeping missions “are essentially ineffective and unsuitable for the situation on the ground” and were never going to solve Africa’s security issues, said Sall, who stepped down as president in April. “The mandates aren’t there, the means aren’t there. What’s really needed is African troops operating within the framework of the African peace and security architecture and the logistical and financial support of the United Nations, as well as other partners such as the European Union.”
While Senegal has been largely spared from the insurgencies that have plagued its neighbors, its troops initially supported Mali’s army as part of an African military support mission and later formed part of the UN mission.
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