Ulf’s view
Mali’s Moscow-backed military government is fighting for its survival after a coordinated jihadist and Tuareg assault killed the defense minister and forced Russian mercenaries to retreat from the north. It raises fears that instability could trigger a new wave of migration to Europe and accelerate a security collapse across the Sahel.
The weekend attacks exposed the acute vulnerability of the ruling junta, whose future now hangs in the balance. But the consequences of a destabilized Mali, compounded by the wider fallout from the Iran war, are unlikely to stop at its borders and threatens to deepen a deteriorating security crisis across one of the world’s most volatile regions.
The risk of insecurity spreading across West Africa’s porous borders, even affecting stable democracies such as Senegal and Ghana, is real. The misery wrought by insurgents in largely ungoverned spaces will push people to flee. This isn’t happening in a vacuum: Fuel price shocks from the Iran war will deepen Mali’s economic crisis, making life unbearable for many because the landlocked country’s government will be unable to pay for imports. Many will choose to move abroad. European countries need to brace themselves for more migration from the Sahel at a time when the conflict in the Middle East is pushing the eurozone into a toxic mix of low growth and high inflation.
It’s important to understand that the Sahel, despite its geographic remoteness, is not isolated: millions of Malians and Burkinabe already work in Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire. More will relocate to those former French colonies in the coming months to escape hell at home, increasing the competition for jobs. Malians are already among the top three nationalities arriving on Spain’s Canary Islands, a key transit point for African migrants travelling to Europe, according to the European border agency Frontex.
Mali has been in a state of crisis for more than a decade: it has grappled with the jihadist insurgency, climate change destroying farmland, and the near collapse of state institutions following coups in 2020 and 2021. The instability of recent years, mixed with the failure of the Russian forces brought in following Mali’s rejection of French and EU troops, means the near term outlook is bleak.
The Russian departure from much of northern Mali will enable jihadist groups to set up training camps in the vast spaces vacated, paving the way for further expansion, a scenario especially feared by Algeria. A government vacuum in the north would benefit arms dealers, drug smugglers, and human traffickers, all of whom pass through Mali and neighboring Niger on their way up to Libya and Mauritania on the main routes from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe.
The insurgency has spread to neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger, with jihadists now pushing into Gulf of Guinea countries Benin and Togo, which are much more tightly connected to globe trade than the landlocked Sahel. The insurgents, who operate at ease, crossing borders and dominating much of the countryside in Mali and Burkina Faso, now feel emboldened to target capital cities. The jihadists are unable to take Bamako, for now. It is unclear whether Mali’s military government will survive the attacks, but the government’s control of the country is now limited to the capital. Governments elsewhere in West Africa and thousands of miles away in Europe should pay attention.
Ulf Laessing is head of the Sahel program at Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Mali. He is based in Bamako.
Notable
- Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita has emerged after not being seen for weeks while Russia said it managed to stop a coup.