UN refugee agency says nearly four million displaced in central Sahel

Mixed · 2The United Nations raised the alarm on Friday about a displacement crisis in the central Sahel, where nearly four million people have been forced to flee their homes in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. 1 2 Mixed · 2The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said the number is more than double that of six years ago, before a wave of coups in a region troubled by instability and violence, and that it includes 818,000 refugees and asylum seekers. 1 2 Right · 1In 2020, UNHCR had counted more than 1.7 million internally displaced people and 365,000 refugees in the region. 1

Centre · 1UNHCR said the crisis is being compounded by continued attacks on civilians, climate-related shocks and severe humanitarian funding shortfalls. 2 Mixed · 2Abdouraouf Gnon-Konde, UNHCR's regional director for west and central Africa, speaking in Geneva after a visit to the region, said these pressures are eroding livelihoods and pushing more families to flee within and beyond the region, and that "the international attention is receding". 1 2 Right · 1He added that instability is increasing pressure on asylum systems, as affected countries struggle with weak public services. 1

Centre · 1In Mali, most refugees come from Burkina Faso; in July, Koro, in the central Bandiagara region near the border, hosted some 86,000 Burkinabe refugees, including more than 14,000 children, after several recent influxes. 2 Centre · 1UNHCR said refugees there now nearly equal the local host community in number, straining limited land and water and overwhelming health services. 2 Right · 1The agency warned the crisis is spreading beyond the central Sahel, with hundreds of thousands displaced to coastal West Africa, including Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo. 1

Mixed · 2UNHCR also faces a severe funding gap: in September it estimated it had received only 27 percent of the funding needed for its work in the Sahel. 1 2