On Thursday, November 17, in Accra, leaders from the neighboring nations that make up the Gulf of Guinea—Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Togo—met. It was the first time they had in-depth discussions about fostering collaboration.
The countries that are a part of the 2017 Accra Initiative aim to work together more effectively to combat the rising risks from terrorist organizations. The number of people killed by terrorists associated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State who are waging war in the Sahel region keeps increasing.
The Ghanaian Minister of National Security assured visitors that the seminar was timely.
It is timely because it gives us the opportunity to consider the tactics and actions taken so far to combat the threat of terrorism and violent extremism.
War kills more civilians in Sahel https://t.co/yqDvGyBxEE
— africanews 😷 (@africanews) June 30, 2022
According to Albert Kan-Dapaah, 346 attacks were reported throughout Africa in the first quarter of 2022, with nearly half occurring in the west of the continent.
As the UK, France, and other countries consider possibilities for “rebalancing our deployment,” British Defense Minister James Heappey announced on Monday (Nov. 14) that he will attend the Accra summit the following week.
In order to coordinate our updated response to the Sahel, I will join colleagues from around Europe and West Africa in Accra, he said.
As a line of defense against the development of Islamist violence, European forces and other peacekeeping operations, including Ivorian and Egyptian soldiers, had been operating in Mali for years.
However, a lot of nations recently declared they would withdraw their troops from Mali.
