U.N.: Surge in Sahel Drug Trafficking Threatens Security

ADF STAFF

Senegalese authorities in mid-April seized more than a metric ton of cocaine concealed in packets and stashed in bags in a truck near the Mali border.

Valued at $146 million, it was the country’s largest inland seizure of cocaine. In November 2023, the Senegalese Navy intercepted three tons of cocaine from a ship off the coast.

These seizures highlight an ongoing trend of drugs, including cannabis and pharmaceutical opioids, that are increasingly trafficked to West Africa and the Sahel.

A new report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows that drug trafficking in these areas — once considered transit hubs as the drugs flowed from South America to Europe — is increasing due to local and international demand. The illicit trade exacerbates myriad security challenges, hinders economic development, and threatens public health.

Cannabis resin was the internationally trafficked drug most commonly seized in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, followed by cocaine and pharmaceutical opioids.

According to the UNODC, cocaine seizures skyrocketed in the Sahel in 2022, from an average of 13 kilograms seized annually between 2015 and 2020 to 1,466 kilograms in 2022, suggesting the existence of large-scale cocaine trafficking. The U.N. did not have annual seizure estimates for 2023, but it reported that Mauritania had seized 2.3 metric tons of cocaine by the middle of the year.

The largest cocaine seizures in 2022 were made in Burkina Faso (488 kilograms), Mali (160 kilograms) and Niger (215 kilograms), but there were probably large amounts of undetected cocaine shipments passing through the region, according to the UNODC.

“This is not only a security issue as armed groups are deriving revenue to finance their operations, it is also a public health issue as criminal groups tap into population growth to expand illicit drug markets,” Amado Philip de Andres, who heads the UNODC’s West and Central Africa regional office, said in a U.N. report.

Cannabis resin trafficked in the Sahel generally originates in Morocco, where increasing production reached an estimated 901 metric tons in 2022. It is commonly trafficked by land from Morocco to Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, then on to Algeria, Egypt and Libya. Since 2020, the Sahel countries have reported that cannabis resin is also being shipped by sea, typically from Morocco down the coast of West Africa to ports in Benin and Togo.

Between 2011 and 2021, the annual prevalence of opioid use increased from 0.33 to 1.24% in Africa, according to the UNODC.

The nonmedical use of pharmaceutical opioids has grown significantly since 2017, when only Niger and Togo cited the painkiller tramadol as the drug most abused by people seeking treatment. By 2022, tramadol was the most abused opioid among those seeking help in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Corruption is among the key enablers of drug trafficking in the Sahel. Actors include politicians, security forces, the judiciary and various armed local rebel groups that earn revenue by collecting “zakat,” a form of tax, and by taxing convoys that enter areas they control. However, these are usually not violent extremist groups linked to al-Qaida or the Islamic State group. In Mali, for example, groups such as Plateforme des mouvements du 14 juin 2014 d’Alger, or Plateforme, and Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad, or CMA, traffic drugs to sustain their involvement in conflict, particularly through the purchase of weapons, according to the UNODC.

Competition over drug trafficking routes in the Sahel and interceptions of drug convoys by armed groups has led to violent clashes and counterattacks, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries.

The report should serve as a “wake-up call,” said Leonardo Santos Simão, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for West Africa and the Sahel.

“States in the Sahel region — along with the international community — must take urgent, coordinated and comprehensive action to dismantle drug trafficking networks and give the people in these countries the future they deserve,” Simão said in a U.N. report.