| Submit your comments on this article |
| Terror Networks |
| The protection of human rights in the face of challenges and obstacles in West Africa |
| 2026-07-08 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Ana Aguilera [OBSERVATORIOTERRORISMO] Executive Summary The combination of structural factors in West Africa and the Sahel, such as food insecurity, extreme poverty, and institutional fragility, along with the expansion of transnational terrorism and the proliferation of military coups, has led to a rapid deterioration in living conditions for millions of people. Human rights have become a secondary consideration in the management of regional conflict, if not a direct target of the violence. This report reveals that human rights violations in the region are driven by interconnected and mutually reinforcing dynamics. Violence perpetrated by non-state armed groups, particularly the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), the Islamic State's affiliates in the Sahel (IS-Sahel) and in the Lake Chad area (ISWAP), and Boko Haram, coexists with systematic abuses committed by government military forces and paramilitary groups. The civilian population, caught between these actors, bears the brunt of the consequences, including mass displacement, restricted access to basic services, sexual violence often used as a weapon of war, and the criminalization of human rights defenders. The report also documents the structural dimension of the crisis. The military juntas governing Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have adopted measures that severely erode the rule of law, restrict press freedom, and hinder the work of humanitarian and human rights organizations. The withdrawal of United Nations and European Union missions and the reconfiguration of security alliances toward actors such as Africa Corps have exacerbated the insecurity and created a vacuum in the monitoring and oversight of violence against civilians that no one has been able to satisfactorily fill. Based on the results obtained, the report concludes that the actors with the capacity to influence the situation, both the States of the region themselves and the African regional bodies, the international community and, in particular, Spain and the European Union, must base themselves on a diagnosis of the real instruments available and the limits of their capacity to influence in the context after the breakdown with the regional security architecture. Link to the full report (pdf) |
| Posted by:badanov |