Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Alliance of Sahel States
| Photo Credit: X@BakaryYaou

Junta-run Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have finalised plans to form a confederation after turning their backs on former colonial ruler France to seek closer ties with Russia.

Their Foreign Ministers met Friday in Niger’s capital Niamey to agree on a text establishing the Confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

“The objective was to finalise the draft text relating to the institutionalisation and operationalisation of the Confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)”, said Niger Foreign Minister Bakary Yaou Sangare as he read the final statement late Friday.

He said the text would be adopted by the heads of state of the three countries at a summit, without specifying the date.

“We can consider very clearly, today, that the Confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) has been born,” Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop said after meeting General Abdourahamane Tiani, the head of Nigerien military regime.

The third Foreign Minister at the meeting was Burkina Faso’s Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore.

The Sahel region has been subject to deadly jihadist violence for years, which they accused France of not being able to curb.

The three countries said late January they were quitting The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which they said was under French influence, to create their own regional grouping.

Dakar, Senegal:

Suspected jihadists in central Mali are holding more than 110 civilians they abducted six days ago, local sources told AFP on Monday.

Three buses carrying the civilians were stopped on April 16 by “jihadists”, who forced the vehicles and the passengers to head towards a forest between Bandiagara and Bankass, a local group of associations and an elected official said.

“We demand the release of more than 110 passengers of three buses kidnapped on Tuesday by jihadists,” a member of the group, Oumar Ongoiba, told AFP.

An elected official from Bandiagara, who wanted to remain anonymous for security reasons, said: “The three buses and the passengers, more than 120, are still being held by jihadists.”

Bandiagara associations had on Friday published a statement condemning the “persistence of terrorist attacks”, the “growing numbers of displaced” people in towns and “the lack of action by the armed forces”.

A protest against insecurity in the town last August following jihadist attacks turned violent and several people were injured.

Mali has since 2012 been ravaged by different factions affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, as well as by self-declared, self-defence forces and bandits.

The violence spilled over into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, with all three countries seeing military regimes seize power.

Since overthrowing Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020, the junta has undertaken a strategic reorientation, breaking off its long alliance with former colonial power France and fostering closer military and political ties with Russia.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger formed their own Sahel alliance in November and all pledged to leave regional bloc ECOWAS.

The worsening security situation in Mali has been compounded by a humanitarian and political crisis.

The junta has faced domestic and international criticism raised since failing to meet commitments to hold a presidential election in February and then step down.

Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga said this month that elections would only be held once the security crisis has been stabilised.

Opposition silenced 

According to security sources and human rights reports, violence increased in the centre of Mali in the last quarter of 2023 when military operations surged.

Despite the operations, armed groups have continued their attacks in the centre and south, coming close to the outskirts of the capital Bamako.

In March, the army said troops had fought off three “terrorist” assaults targeting a customs post about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Bamako and two army camps in the south.

AFP could not independently verify claims from both sides from often remote places where access is rare. The Malian army rarely reports on any operation other than to claim victory.

The regime has effectively silenced the opposition, journalists and human rights defenders, with many in jail or exile.

On March 31, less than a week after the junta had been scheduled to hand power back to civilians, several political parties and civil society groups put out a rare statement demanding elections “as soon as possible” and noting the country was in a “legal and institutional vacuum”.

Days later, all political activities were suspended awaiting the results of a national dialogue launched by junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita in December.

Media coverage of political parties was also banned in the West African nation.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The military leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger on Saturday signed a mutual defence pact, ministerial delegations from the three Sahel countries announced in Mali’s capital Bamako.

The Liptako-Gourma Charter establishes the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Mali’s junta leader Assimi Goita posted on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Its aim is to “establish an architecture of collective defence and mutual assistance for the benefit of our populations”, he wrote.

The Liptako-Gourma region — where the Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger borders meet — has been ravaged by jihadism in recent years.

“This alliance will be a combination of military and economic efforts between the three countries”, Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told journalists.

“Our priority is the fight against terrorism in the three countries.”

A jihadist insurgency that erupted in northern Mali in 2012 spread to Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.

All three countries have undergone coups since 2020, most recently Niger, where soldiers in July overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum.

The West African regional bloc ECOWAS has threatened to intervene militarily in Niger over the coup.

Mali and Burkina Faso quickly responded by saying that any such operation would be deemed a “declaration of war” against them.

The charter signed on Saturday binds the signatories to assist one another — including militarily — in the event of an attack on any one of them.

“Any attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one or more contracting parties shall be considered as an aggression against the other parties and shall give rise to a duty of assistance… including the use of armed force to restore and ensure security”, it states.

It also binds the three countries to work to prevent or settle armed rebellions.

Mali has, in addition to fighting jihadists linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group, seen a resumption of hostilities by predominantly Tuareg armed groups over the past week.

The escalation risks testing an already stretched army as well as the junta’s claims that it has successfully turned around a dire security situation.

The successionist groups had in 2012 launched a rebellion before signing a peace agreement with the state in 2015. But that accord is now generally considered moribund.

The renewed military activity by those armed groups has coincided with a series of deadly attacks attributed mainly to the Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist alliance Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM).

Mali’s junta pushed out France’s anti-jihadist force in 2022 and the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA in 2023.

French troops have also been pushed out of Burkina Faso, while Niger’s coup leaders have renounced several military cooperation agreements with France.