UN officials: Terrorist activity is surging in Africa's Sahel, endangering women and girls

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Terrorist activity is surging in Africa’s volatile Sahel region, making life more difficult and dangerous for women and girls, senior U.N. officials said Thursday.

Over the past decade, the arid region south of the Sahara Desert has been shaken by extremist uprisings and military coups. Three nations — Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso — are now ruled by military leaders who took power by force, pledging to provide more security to citizens. But the security situation has worsened.

“Terrorist activity has surged in scale, complexity and sophistication,” U.N. special representative Leonardo Santos Simão told the Security Council. He pointed to the use of drones and increasing collusion with organized criminals working across borders.

Sima Bahous, the executive director of UN Women, said no region is more affected by terrorism. “Life for women and girls under terrorist control is one of erasure from public space," she said.

In the three countries, more than 1 million girls are out of school because of the violence, and 60% of those girls have never set foot in a classroom, she said. This has contributed to the region's high rates of child marriage, according to Bahous.

“As violence displaces families and shutters markets, women’s livelihoods vanish and household resilience collapses," she told the Security Council. And because of a drought, women and girls are walking longer distances to fetch water and firewood.

“Two-thirds report feeling unsafe on these journeys, in a region that already ranks among the highest globally for reported cases of sexual and gender-based violence," Bahous said.

Long battered by jihadi violence, the Sahel region has seen a spike in deadly attacks mainly by the al-Qaida-linked JNIM group, which has overrun major cities and military bases. Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data showed that May was more deadly than the preceding eight months.

In Niger, which recorded one of its deadliest months in June, fighters backed by the Islamic State group launched a major offensive across the Tillaberi and Dosso regions, killing more than 100 villagers, in a return to mass atrocities in rural areas. Ransom kidnappings targeting foreigners have also spiked in the country this year.

Simão, who heads the U.N. Office for West Africa and the Sahel, cited ACLED data reporting over 400 terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger between April 1 and July 31, leading to 2,870 deaths.

Young people are increasingly being recruited by violent extremist groups, and millions of people are fleeing across borders, he said.

To confront the threat, Simão said Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have created a joint defense force, and broader regional efforts are also taking place.

Bahous urged the international community not to abandon the Sahel and called for at least 15% of the funding to prevent violent extremism be allocated to help women and promote gender equality.

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Chinedu Asadu contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal.