Death toll rises in West Africa's Sahel region, so does the anger towards the former colonial power France
Hundreds of militants with heavy arms killed 71 Nigerien soldiers in an attack on a military base in the western Niger next to the border of Mali, the country’s defence minister confirmed on national television on Wednesday.
With the West’s largest military presence in the Sahel, France has 4,500 troops deployed in the region and a budget of nearly 600 million euros per year. On the other hand, France’s failure has spread popular anger towards the former colonial power across the countries as many chanted the same slogan: “Get out France, we don’t want to see you here.”
Although no group has claimed responsibility as yet, the attack is part of the larger humanitarian crisis that is fuelled by various militant groups in West Africa’s entire Sahel region. Although the violence has hit Mali and Burkina Faso the hardest, leaving large swathes of those countries ungovernable, it has also spilled over into Niger, which shares a long and porous borders with its two neighbours.Boiling point was reached when French President Emmanuel Macron’s reaction to the latest attack was described by many West Africans as 'neo-colonialist'.
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