Morocco calls for coherent, viable regional response to counter terrorism & extremism in the Sahel

Morocco has called, on Thursday in Addis Ababa, before the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) for a coherent and viable regional response to counter terrorism and violent extremism in the Sahel.

“A coherent and viable regional response is needed to counter terrorism and violent extremism in the Sahel. In this sense, it is important to take advantage of the complementary role of regional mechanisms such as the Accra Initiative, the Nouakchott Process, and the Africa Reflection Group”, reaffirmed the Moroccan Delegation at an AU PSC meeting on the situation in the Sahel.

Morocco has called on the AU Commission, AU member states and the international community to provide the necessary support and backing to all countries in transition, in order to assist their efforts to bring peace and stability to their respective countries.

The Moroccan Delegation insisted that in order to meet the multifaceted challenges facing the Sahel region, it is essential to adopt comprehensive, holistic, integrated, and multidimensional approaches aimed at consolidating peace, strengthening security, and promoting prosperous and sustainable development.

The Moroccan delegation warned that the security crisis was exacerbating an already serious humanitarian crisis in the Sahel, and that almost all Sahelian countries were affected by the consequences of climate change, namely drought, water stress, land degradation, and problems of access to water and food, which were causing health and migration problems.

The Sahel is nobody’s exclusive domain, where everyone knows that security threats cannot be dealt with at the expense of the interests of the countries in the region, noted the Moroccan delegation, underlining that the solution to the problems of the Sahel zone necessarily involves the responsibility of the region’s governments.

The Moroccan delegation recalled that the Kingdom was among the first countries to draw the attention of neighboring countries and the international community to the growing threat of criminal activity in the Sahel-Sahara region by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terror groups and drug trafficking networks.