Countries in Africa’s Western Sahel region – including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – saw a 50% increase in deaths due to conflict in 2022. That is according to figures from the Armed Location and Event Data Project. As violence has spread, so too has Russia’s influence and political instability, with increasing coups and numbers of displaced people. Henry Wilkins reports from Niamey, Niger.
Nowhere is this evolution in the global terrorism landscape more vivid than in Africa, where terrorist groups, from al-Qaida branches to ISIS affiliates, now collectively occupy vast swaths of territory and extract benefits from millions of suffering people.