The G5 Sahel countries and France meet on Tuesday June 30 in Nouakchott to take stock of their fight against the jihadists, six months after they decided to intensify the joint effort to regain lost ground in the region.
Emmanuel Macron and the Heads of State of Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad met on Tuesday 30 June in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital, six months after the promises exchanged in Pau. The French President and the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sanchez, are making their first trip to Africa since the coronavirus crisis on this occasion on the occasion of this G5 Sahel summit.
France, its African partners, as well as the German, Spanish and Italian heads of government who joined the meeting by videoconference, have therefore taken stock of developments in the region and the commitments made in January.
In the last six months, France has increased Barkhane’s strength by 500 troops to 5,100. Since then, Barkhane and his partners have stepped up their offensives in the tri-border area, claiming the “neutralization” of hundreds of jihadists. In Nouakchott, according to the Élysée, it will be a question of opening a “period of consolidation” in this region.
At the UN in early June, the United States was also concerned about the “inability of the signatories of the 2015 peace agreement in Mali to make significant progress”. “The number of attacks in the Western Sahel region has increased by 250 percent since 2018. Partner countries remain committed to fighting terrorism, but lack the means to contain and reduce the threat in a sustained manner,” the U.S. State Department said in a recently released report.