ABUJA: Leaders from the west African bloc ECOWAS on Sunday admitted during talks in the Nigerian capital that the region was in trouble, facing mounting unrest and political instability.
“Our region is at the crossroads,” said Sierra Leone’s Julius Maada Bio as he took over the rotating chairmanship of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu.
West Africa is “facing serious challenges, some long-standing, others new and evolving,” he said.
They included “insecurity in the Sahel and coastal states, terrorism, political instability, illicit arms flow and transnational organized crimes.”
It was time to “overhaul our collective security architecture” including intelligence-sharing and rapid response, he added. “The democratic space is under strain in parts of our region — the constitutional order has been disrupted.”
Coups and attempted putsches have rocked nearly half of the original ECOWAS member states in the last decade, straining relations between neighbors.
Three junta-led countries — Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — quit the bloc earlier this year, setting up their own alliances.
Jihadists exploiting fraying ties between regional countries are gaining ground in the Sahel and Lake Chad region.
They have recently intensified offensives in the Sahel region, staging bloody raids in Mali, incursions into major cities in Burkina Faso and inflicting heavy army losses in Niger.
Summit host Nigeria has also witnessed a spike in attacks in recent weeks, targeting both villagers and military bases.
In his speech, outgoing ECOWAS chair Tinubu spoke of the “stark and consistent challenges that continue to impede our aspirations... violent extremism and other cross-border crimes that have continued to widen” and intensify.
The three Sahel states’ military juntas pledged during the coups that brought them to power to make security a priority.
But, like their predecessors, they are struggling to contain the advance of jihadists, who are threatening neighboring countries on the west African coast more than ever.
Tinubu said that under his leadership ECOWAS “deployed all diplomatic means” to engage the three countries and expressed confidence “that before too long, they may return” to the bloc.
Bringing the three countries back into the ECOWAS fold will be the “biggest test” of the chairmanship of Maada Bio, a former soldier who briefly led a military junta in his own country more than two decades ago, said Ikemesit Effiong, analyst with SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based African geopolitical risk consulting firm.
The three countries have so far formed a confederation called the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Earlier this year they announced the creation of a joint 5,000-strong force for joint military operations.
ECOWAS leaders in August 2023 mustered plans to create a military “standby force” aimed at fighting against terrorism and transnational crimes. At the time it was announced, it was aimed at the junta leaders in Niger who had toppled the sitting president.
Tinubu said ECOWAS “must act decisively to operationalize the standby force in the fight against terrorism to serve as an instrument for peace and stability for our region.”
“I am a little bit worried about the slow pace of its activation, which is taking longer than desired,” said Tinubu.
ECOWAS did not give a timeline of when it would become operational.
But the organization has a long history of military interventions having deployed since the 1990s in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Ivory Coast, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.
West African leaders admit security woes mounting in region
https://arab.news/wstwy
West African leaders admit security woes mounting in region
- Coups and attempted putsches have rocked nearly half of the original ECOWAS member states in the last decade, straining relations between neighbors
Russia and Ukraine trade attacks as US and European officials prepare for peace talks
Moscow pounded Ukrainian power infrastructure with drone and missile strikes on Saturday and Kyiv launched a deadly strike of its own on southwestern Russia, a day before talks involving senior European and US officials aimed at ending the war were set to resume.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian, US and European officials will hold a series of meetings in Berlin in the coming days, adding that he will personally meet with US President Donald Trump’s envoys.
“Most importantly, I will be meeting with envoys of President Trump, and there will also be meetings with our European partners, with many leaders, concerning the foundation of peace — a political agreement to end the war,” Zelensky said in an address to the nation late Saturday.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner are traveling to Berlin for the talks, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
American officials have tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including which combatant will get control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
“The chance is considerable at this moment, and it matters for our every city, for our every Ukrainian community,” Zelensky said. “We are working to ensure that peace for Ukraine is dignified, and to secure a guarantee — a guarantee, above all — that Russia will not return to Ukraine for a third invasion.”
As diplomats push for peace, the war grinds on.
Russia attacked five Ukrainian regions overnight, targeting the country’s energy and port infrastructure. Zelensky said the attacks involved more than 450 drones and 30 missiles. And with temperatures hovering around freezing, Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said more than a million people were without electricity.
An attack on Odesa caused grain silos to catch fire at the coastal city’s port, Ukrainian deputy prime minister and reconstruction minister Oleksiy Kuleba said. Two people were wounded in attacks on the wider Odesa region, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.
Kyiv and its allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
The drone attack in Russia’s Saratov region damaged a residential building and killed two people, said the regional governor, Roman Busargin, who didn’t offer further details. Busragin said the attack also shattered windows at a kindergarten and clinic. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it shot down 41 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight.
On the front lines, Ukrainian forces said Saturday that the northern part of Pokrovsk was under Ukrainian control, despite Russia’s claims this month that it had taken full control of the critical city. The Associated Press was not able to independently verify the claims.
The latest attacks came after Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov reaffirmed Friday that Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine’s forces have withdrawn from parts of the Donetsk region that they still control.
Ukraine has consistently refused to cede the remaining part of the region to Russia.
Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and national guard troops would stay in parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan — a demand likely to be rejected by Ukraine as US-led negotiations drag on.
Ushakov warned that a search for compromise could take a long time, noting that the US proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.
“We don’t know what changes they are making, but clearly they aren’t for the better,” Ushakov said, adding: “We will strongly insist on our considerations.”
In other developments, about 480 people were evacuated Saturday from a train traveling between the Polish city of Przemysl and Kyiv after police received a call concerning a threat on the train, Karolina Kowalik, a spokesperson for the Przemysl police, told The Associated Press. Nobody was hurt and she didn’t elaborate on the threat.
Polish authorities are on high alert since multiple attempts to disrupt trains on the line linking Warsaw to the Ukrainian border, including the use of explosives in November, with Polish authorities saying they have evidence Russia was behind it.
