JOSHUA NOTT: The Sahel: a crisis we cannot afford to ignore
The unfolding humanitarian crisis across the Sahel depicts one of the great international oversights of our time. For people living in this semi-arid belt, spanning the latitude of the African continent running just below the Sahara desert, chaos is the only accurate descriptor for daily life.
The latest spate of coups in the region illustrates an interesting political case study about those states: while they enjoy legitimacy in forums, such as the UN and AU, they do not exercise any real authority at home. But the problem is not academic — it is real, and this state of affairs cannot persist for the long term. Without a concerted multilateral peacekeeping effort, there is a possibility that the region will collapse in on itself...
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