Focus on the Sahel: Terrorism, NGOs and the Fulani communities

The medical charity Doctors Without Borders announced Monday it has suspended work in the northern Burkina Faso city of Djibo, citing the targeting of health centres operating in the city.

In the past two years, jihadist groups including al Qaeda and JNIM (the “Support Group for Islam and Muslims”) have closed in on the city, which is located near the borders of both Niger and Mali. But the charity is not just pointing fingers at the jihadists.

"Doctors Without Borders are saying this knowing that Djibo has been under siege for years now,” FRANCE 24 journalist and terrorism expert Wassim Nasr said. “They don't blame jihadist groups in particular as being responsible for this harassment they are living, but they also accuse local authorities."

Burkina Faso’s interim president Captain Ibrahim Traoré, one of a trio of military leaders who have seized power in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali in recent years, has been fighting a bitter battle against jihadist violence, declaring a policy of total war against the disparate Islamist groups operating across the three countries’ porous borderlands. The country’s armed forces, and the militias that Traoré has mobilised, have been accused of frequently killing civilians in their attempt to stamp out jihadist groups – in particular, members of the Fulani people. 

“The Fulanis … are being attacked and harassed by local government and the militias,” Nasr said. “And we know that among the Fulani communities, we have castes. So the lower castes are seeing a kind of revenge by joining jihadists, but the upper classes are still loyal to the government. So it’s not only religious, it’s also playing on the social structure.”

One member of the 40 million-strong group that joined the jihadists is Amadou Koufa, a founding member and now second-in-command of JNIM. Nasr sent questions to the Fulani preacher about the current state of the jihadists’ campaign to spread their influence across the Gulf of Guinea – and their apparent willingness to let some NGOs continue their work in areas controlled by the extremist groups.

“He was very clear, he said we tolerate the work of NGOs, especially if they don’t contradict what we preach,” he said. “And I knew for example that in Timbuktu back in August, al Qaeda prevented all NGOs from working in the area, except two and the argument was that other NGOs were using pregnancy prevention tools, which go against what they think is their core religion.”

Koufa told Nasr that the military juntas’ all-out onslaught of jihadists – including the Malian government’s partnership with the Russian-backed Wagner mercenary group – was only driving more and more people to join their ranks.

“The human rights abuses of Wagner and the Malian junta in the centre of Mali made many Fulanis join the jihadists,” Nasr said. “And Koufa said that human rights abuses that were perpetrated by Wagner and the Malians exceeded by a lot the human rights abuses that were carried out by the French when they were there. So the factor of human rights abuses leading to more recruitment from al Qaeda is a fact today, and he admitted it too.”

With the jihadist groups fighting amongst themselves as well as against the three juntas, the conflict in the Sahel has grown increasingly bloody in recent months. Nasr said that the hope of a peaceful resolution to the fighting had long been elusive – though Koufa suggested he was open to sitting down one day with the military regimes “as long as the negotiations are bound by Sharia law”.

“When we talk about the bigger picture [Koufa] said, which was quite surprising, that even the negotiations under [deposed president Mohamed] Bazoum in Niger weren’t that efficient,” he said. “Because we thought they were, and we had results on the ground – but he doesn’t see it this way.”

“On the other hand, he said that he is ready to negotiate with the juntas, meaning Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, and that he is warning the countries of the Gulf of Guinea,” he added. “He is asking them not to make the same mistakes that were made by the juntas in the Sahel Region.”