Weapons used in Sahel come from Europe, Amnesty investigation finds
A repentant jihadist camp in Mopti in central Mali (Illustrative image).
RFI
Text by: David Baché
3 min
Where do the weapons used by armed groups in the Sahel come from?
A study published this Monday, August 23 by the NGO Amnesty International reveals that the Sahelian branch of the Islamic State group as well as the JNIM linked to al-Qaeda use weapons of European manufacture and in particular Serbian.
Amnesty also points to their use by pro-government militias and refers to illegal arms circuits of these groups.
Advertising
Read more
Amnesty International has analyzed more than 400 photos and videos disseminated by the Sahelian branch of the Islamic State group and by the JNIM (Support Group for Islam and Muslims) linked to Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), but also by local self-defense militias - Dan na Ambassagou in Mali or the VDP (Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland) in Burkina - between January 2018 and May 2021.
Most of the weapons that can be seen there are old Kalashnikovs from the Soviet era, but Amnesty has also identified twelve cases in which fighters had newer weapons made by a Serbian company, Zastava.
“
M70AB2, M92 and M05.
These are machine guns that are quite present in the arsenals of armed groups, whether violent extremist groups or self-defense groups.
This is why this company was particularly pointed out,
”explains Ousmane Diallo, researcher specializing in the Sahel at Amnesty International.
Trafficking, weak controls or donation of weapons
Jihadist groups
regularly recover the equipment of national armies, during attacks on barracks or on soldiers killed in combat.
But Amnesty does not exclude other channels either.
“
This could be due to arms trafficking and the weakness of control over military inventories within Sahelian countries,”
adds Ousmane Diallo.
And at the same time, a last hypothesis that cannot be overlooked is the possibility that some of the members of these Armed Forces sell or else give some of these rifles to members of armed groups, in particular soldiers. pro-government self-defense groups.
"
Amnesty recalls that France, Slovakia and the Czech Republic also export weapons to the Sahel and calls on these countries, but also on the Sahelian governments which receive these weapons, to better control their use.
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Sahel
Terrorism