More deaths occurred in Ethiopia’s war against Tigray, its northern province, than in Ukraine, and hostilities continue. Despite the territorial and military acquisitions by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State having been significantly reduced in Syria/Iraq and Afghanistan by Western forces, Kurdish Iraqi contingents, and the Taliban, jihadist insurgents belonging to both groups now control half of Burkina Faso and one-third of neighboring Mali. These once tranquil Sahelian nations in Africa, and others such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Somalia, are embroiled in bitter internecine conflict. What should have been for them a peaceful and developmentally positive twenty-first century in fact is increasingly an era of murder, plunder, and repetitive mayhem.
Ethiopia
More than 600,000 Ethiopians lost their lives between 2020 and 2023 in and near Tigray after Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the Ethiopian army to punish Tigray’s regional government for daring to defy his central government’s edicts. At first the national army triumphed, killing and maiming as it marched through Tigray. It was assisted by an equally vicious army from neighboring Eritrea, invited into Tigray by Abiy, and also by pro-Abiy militia from Ethiopia’s Amhara region on Tigray’s southern flank.
Tigray’s own armed militia re-grouped and pushed the Ethiopian army back toward Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital. But Abiy acquired drones from Turkey and used them effectively once more to overwhelm Tigray, again with Eritrean and Amhara help. He also prevented aid convoys from reaching the starving millions in Tigray. Finally, an African Union and South African-brokered ceasefire ended the hot war early 2023.
Tigray is in shambles, its historic cities in ruins. But food relief supplies are finally reaching the desperately poor and battered people of the province. Yet, Eritrea still illegally occupies parts of Tigray and Amharan soldiers harry Tigray from the south. Refugees from Sudan’s fratricidal conflict also pour into its westernmost towns.
Abiy also faces a rebellion from his own Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest. The Oromo Liberation Front has taken up arms against the central government, seeking more autonomy and more privileges for Oromo in the Oromia region. The Ethiopian army hence battles to reassert its hegemony in Oromia and Amhara regions, and also to maintain a tight lid on counterattacks in Tigray.
Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation after Nigeria, is now consumed from within by three civil wars, with others in the east and south likely to emerge. Abiy opened the floodgates of contention when he invaded Tigray in 2020; now Ethiopia could easily disintegrate into warring ethnic segments unless African and Western diplomatic efforts stem its collapse.
Burkina Faso and Mali
In 2013, using arms obtained when Libya fell apart after a Western intervention and President Muammar Qaddafi’s death, Arab jihadists swept out of their Saharan desert redoubts in southern Algeria to conquer northern Mali and occupy fabled Timbuktu, which they pillaged. French paratroops and legionnaires arrived to quell the jihadists and restore order to Mali. German and British detachments subsequently assisted French forces to maintain order in Mali, with help from American brigades and aircraft eventually based in nearby Niger.
Under pressure from repeated waves of jihadist attack from the north, the civilian governments of both Mali and Burkina Faso gave way. Militarily led coups in both countries (and two in succession in Burkina Faso) increasingly ceded territory to the insurgents. By 2019, the attackers from the north had split into two increasingly powerful and well-financed factions; one is now allied to al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, the other to the Islamic State in the Sahara.
Under their own self-appointed generals serving as heads of state, both Mali and Burkina Faso have sundered ties to France, their colonial overlord, and compelled the 5,000 person French keepers of the peace to stand down. A smaller French force has now re-located to Niger, but it is not directly helping Mali and Burkina Faso contain the jihadists. German and British defenders have also gone home. Only the American Special Forces and drone operations remain, in Niger.
Mali turned for protection to the Wagner Group, a mercenary operation allied to Putin. But it has done little to curtail the al-Qaeda and Islamic State attackers. Both competing groups, seemingly outclassing the Wagnerites, are today making serious dents in both countries. There have been numerous casualties and major territorial losses.
Neither in Mali nor in Burkina Faso, militarily led and highly corrupted states, will local governments (even with very questionable Wagner assistance) easily be able to dislodge the jihadists. The insurgents could easily overrun Burkina, too. And they could continue south to threaten Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, and Togo on the Atlantic Coast.
The time has come for an African Union force with Western assistance to take charge. Such an intervention could only come when and if Mali sends the Wagnerites home to Russia and begins to cooperate with the African Union and the West. It would also mean a major assault on the narcotics trafficking convoys north across the Sahara that sustain the militants financially.
Hardly any African civilian war persists without profits from the smuggling of illicit substances. If there were no profits from drugs, there would be no reason to kill widely across the Sahel. But, so far, few attempts have been made by African nations or the West to sunder the drugs trade from the Sahel across the Sahara to Europe. American drones could cut the convoys if African leaders gave permission. Doing so would save the states of the Sahel from succumbing to the Islamist depredations that now threaten stability and livelihoods throughout West Africa.