Date: Wednesday 17 September | Location: Online Webinar | Time: 14:00 – 15:00 (UTC+1)

Over the past decade the Sahel region — covering Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania — has emerged as a global terrorism hotspot with more deaths in 2024 than in the rest of the world combined. This has played a major part in: the region’s takeover by military juntas; the humiliation and withdrawal of France and UN peacekeeping missions; and most Western interests. The vacuum has been filled by Russia, in the form of Russia’s Wagner Group (a.k.a. the Africa Corps). The consequences of these developments for West Africa, and the continent as a whole, are likely to be disastrous.

The webinar will analyse:

• The origin of the Sahel’s terrorists and how the region become the global hotspot;
• The emergence of military juntas in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso; and Chad’s dictatorship;
• The Russification of the Sahel and Moscow’s objectives in the Sahel;
• Russia’s regional functions and its perpetration of massacres and ethnic cleansing;
• The withdrawal of France and the UN and its implications for the West;
• The spread of terrorism into West Africa.

Speaker

Jeremy Keenan is a professional anthropologist and currently Visiting Professor in the Law School at Queen Mary University London (QMUL). He has worked in and on the Sahara-Sahel since 1964. With over 300 books and academic publications to his name, he is the most published current scholar on the region. He is best known for his studies of the Tuareg and his analysis of the US’ global war on terror (GWOT) and its implications on the people and countries of the Sahara-Sahel. His latest publication Mali’s Genocide will be launched in London on 14 October. He has advised numerous international organisations (UN. EU, etc), governments and multinational companies on political and security issues in the Sahara-Sahel regions.