Africa Information Stay Updates: Illicit ‘blood gold’ commerce fuels battle in West Africa’s Sahel area

Illicit ‘blood gold’ commerce fuels battle in West Africa’s Sahel area

A bootleg commerce in ‘blood gold’ is fuelling battle throughout West Africa’s Sahel area, offering a important income stream for each army juntas and jihadist teams, in response to a report in BBC. In nations like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which have lately skilled army coups, the brand new regimes use unregulated gold earnings to bypass worldwide sanctions and finance their safety forces. Concurrently, jihadist organizations, together with Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State within the Larger Sahara (ISGS), exploit the commerce to fund weapons procurement, recruitment, and territorial growth. This phenomenon, centered round poorly managed artisanal mines, undermines state authority and regional stability whereas inflicting extreme hardship on civilian populations.