MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th May, 2020) � The COVID-19 pandemic, which is already having significant health and economic impacts, will also increase the risk of insecurity in the Sahel region and the international community must increase its activities to ensure peace, Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou said Tuesday.
"The African Union is aware of the direct link between security and development. The current sanitary crisis will have serious socio-economic consequences: unemployment, enhancement of poverty, notably the amount of people suffering from hunger. So certainly, there will be consequences for security as well," Issoufou, who was speaking at a New York Forum Institute virtual roundtable, remarked.
Issoufou praised the work of the French counter-insurgency mission in the region, Operation Barkhane, as well as other military operations currently being carried out by African countries as part of the G5 Sahel Joint Force. However, the Nigerien leader called for greater resources to be devoted to the region, which faces a triple crisis.
"At the moment this crisis has not had an impact on the course of military operations in the Sahel, carried out by the G5 Sahel Joint Force, forces of operation Barkhane, national forces, and mixed international forces ... Of course, we want greater participation from countries in the Sahel coalition ... I want to appeal for solidarity with the Sahel, which will be facing a triple crisis: security, sanitary and economic. There are consequences in terms of security, which we need to confront," Issoufou said.
On March 27, France and 12 other countries lent their support to the creation of a new task force, dubbed Takuba, to fight terrorism in the Sahel region. The international community has maintained a significant presence in the Sahel since the establishment of MINUSMA, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, in 2013. The peacekeeping mission was created to bring stability to Mali following the 2012 Tuareg rebellion.
