Africa’s Sahel Region Threatened by Terrorism and Organized crime
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עברית (Hebrew)
Israeli security advisers confront “many diversified” hurdles when offering their expertise to some African nations that suffer from crime and terror. Israeli companies have identified the needs of countries in the region but they have discovered that it is very difficult to get these contracts. An Israeli source familiar with the issue just said that the reason is “diversified”
Terrorism, trafficking in arms, drugs, and people, and other transnational forms of organized crime are some of the major threats plaguing security in Africa’s vast sub-Saharan Sahel region, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned the Security Council last week.
“The Sahel’s vast size and long, porous borders mean that such challenges can be addressed successfully only if the countries of the region work together,” he told the Council at the start of a meeting on the situation in the region.
IHLS – Israel Homeland Secrurity
According to HLS News Wire, the meeting was also addressed by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, and Romano Prodi, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Sahel.
“The United Nations will continue its efforts to promote security, good governance and resilience,” he said, calling also for more to be done to address food crises that plague the Sahel as well as to improve conditions in migrants’ communities of origin while generating more legal opportunities for migrants to work abroad.
The Sahel stretches from Mauritania in the west to Eritrea in the east, a vast belt dividing the Sahara desert and the savannahs to the south, which has undergone three major droughts in less than a decade and where more than eleven million people are at risk of hunger and five million children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition.
