US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $150 million in humanitarian aid for Niger and other African nations as part of an effort to support a government that’s been battling to quell extremist violence in the Sahel region.
(Bloomberg) — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $150 million in humanitarian aid for Niger and other African nations as part of an effort to support a government that’s been battling to quell extremist violence in the Sahel region.
The funding will help refugees and others impacted by conflict and food insecurity across West and Central Africa, including in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and neighboring countries, Blinken said.
The top US diplomat landed in the land-locked West African nation, one of the world’s least-developed, on Thursday following meetings with officials in Ethiopia. He praised the government’s efforts to tackle acute security challenges, including through programs that help disarm and rehabilitate former combatants, a senior State Department official told reporters en route to Niger.
The Nigerien government understands that the violence stems from broader governance and political issues, and that a security-focused approach alone won’t solve the problem, the official said, asking not to be identified before Blinken met officials in the nation. The US wants to highlight Niger’s democratic approach, particularly as terrorist organizations including Islamic State and Al-Qaeda branches continue to pose a threat to governments across sub-Saharan Africa, the official said.
Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, which is active across several African countries and which the US has singled out as a malign influence on the continent, has also tried to capitalize on anti-French sentiment across Francophone West Africa, the official added, particularly after French troops left Mali last year.
Blinken met with Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum and his Foreign Minister Hassoumi Massoudou on Thursday afternoon.
The US envoy announced an additional $331 million in humanitarian aid for Ethiopia while visiting a United Nations logistics center in the capital of Addis Ababa on Wednesday, as the country grapples with fallout from a two-year civil war, drought and rising food and fertilizer prices as a result of the war in Ukraine. The official didn’t specify how much money Niger will get.
Read more: Blinken Visits Ethiopia Amid Broader US Push Into Africa (3)
Terrorist attacks have more than doubled in sub-Saharan Africa since 2016, even as worldwide deaths from terrorism have declined, the United Nations Development Program said in a January report. Roughly half of all terrorism-related deaths were in Sub-Saharan Africa, with just four countries — Niger, Somalia, Burkina Faso and Mali — accounting for more than one-third of the fatalities, the report said.
The UN agency said these “dramatic shifts” of extremist activity from the Middle East and North Africa to sub-Saharan Africa were overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and other factors including rising authoritarianism and the global climate crisis.
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