AFRICA ( commonwealth Union ) _ U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Niger in an effort to forge closer ties with a nation that has so far avoided the recent wave of military coups and Russian mercenaries destabilizing its neighbors. He announced $150 million in direct aid to Africa’s Sahel region. With each country having seen two military coups since 2020, Mali and Burkina Faso are both becoming more unstable at the same time as Blinken is visiting. In response to the ongoing violence perpetrated by Islamic extremists, both neighbours have also expelled French military personnel from their nations and requested military support from Russia.
Blinken cautioned that the spread of Russian mercenaries in the region would not be good for the countries accepting them on Thursday, describing Niger as “a paradigm of resilience, a model of democracy, a model of cooperation” in the region. He added that the mysterious Russian group has not offered “an effective response to insecurity” in the other places it has operated. “It’s not just that we know this is going to end badly – we’ve already seen it,” he said.
The Sahel, an area in Africa lying below the Sahara Desert, has seen a significant increase in the influence of Islamic radicals during the past ten years. The region where Niger’s open borders with Mali and Burkina Faso meet has seen some of the worst acts of violence. As anti-French sentiment rises in Mali and Burkina Faso, Niger has become a crucial foreign partner in the area. In several nations, people have openly waved Russian flags in support of the junta rulers.
After nearly a decade of attempting to assist the Malian military in battling Islamic militants, France decided to shift its troops to Niger as ties with the junta leader-turned-president of Mali rapidly worsened. There are thought to be 1,000 Wagner mercenaries working in Mali, and during the past year, they have been charged with violating human rights. Burkina Faso denies recruiting Wagner troops, but it claims that after purchasing military gear from Moscow, Russian instructors will lead military training.
Blinken had a two-day stop in Ethiopia before continuing on to Niger, where he stated that before relations with the United States can be repaired, Ethiopia needed to make more headway implementing a peace agreement with its northern Tigray region.
