Sahel’s drug trafficking scourge flagged

Cocaine, cannabis and opioids are getting easier to buy as criminal networks and armed groups capitalise on the fragile Sahel's ‘natural stopover point’ to Europe on trafficking routes from South America. However, UN News reports that the authorities, with help from the UN, are taking down criminal networks and making a record number of seizures of illicit drugs. According to a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), drug trafficking in the region continues to hinder security, economic development and the rule of law while jeopardising public health. ‘Drug trafficking is well-established in the Sahel region – with detrimental consequences both locally and globally,’ said Amado Philip de Andres, who heads the agency's West and Central Africa regional office. He said this is not only a security issue as armed groups are deriving revenue to finance their operations, it is also a public health issue as criminal groups tap into population growth to expand illicit drug markets.’ In some Sahelian countries – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – cannabis resin remains the internationally trafficked drug most commonly seized, followed by cocaine and pharmaceutical opioids.

Cocaine seizures skyrocketed in the Sahel in 2022, from an average of 13kg per year seized between 2015 and 2020 to 1 466kg in 2022. UNODC assessments said this suggests the presence of large-scale cocaine trafficking through the region. UN News notes that while annual estimates were not available for 2023, by mid-year, 2.3 tons of cocaine had already been seized in Mauritania, according to the agency. The new report found that drug trafficking continues to provide financial resources to armed groups in the region, including Plateforme des mouvements du 14 juin 2014 d'Alger (Plateforme) in Algeria and Coordination des Mouvements de l'Azawad (CMA) in Mali, enabling them to sustain their involvement in conflict, notably through the purchase of weapons. And traffickers are using money laundering to disguise their illicit proceeds in a growing number of sectors, from gold to real estate. That makes financial transactions more difficult to track while giving traffickers greater economic leverage and ‘a veneer of legitimacy’, the report found.  Combatting terrorist groups operating in the Sahel was in the spotlight at the recent High-Level African Counter-Terrorism Meeting, held in Abuja in late April. Among concerns raised by Heads of State across the region were the increasing links between terrorism and organised crime. Speaking at the meeting, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed described the situation in Africa, particularly in the Sahel, as dire, noting that the region now accounts for almost half of all deaths from terrorism globally. ‘A major factor that has fuelled the rise in insurgency in the Sahel is organised crime, particularly the proliferation and smuggling of firearms across our porous borders,’ she said.

Full UN News report