A West African military force to fight Islamist militants has only received a quarter of the money pledged at its deployment last year and is in urgent need of financial support, French Defense Minister Florence Parly said.
Donors from Saudi Arabia to the US pledged to fund the force known as G5 Sahel when it began deploying last year. So far, about a quarter of a total €414-million pledged has been released, Parly said Monday in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, at the sidelines of a security conference.
“The challenge now is to turn the financing promises into real donations,” Parly said. “The joint force definitely needs to be better equipped, so this money is really necessary.”
Five West African nations – Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania – agreed last year to deploy a 5 000-strong regional force to fight militants linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State in the Sahel, a semiarid region stretching along the southern end of the Sahara. France, which already has 4 000 soldiers in the region, has been the main backer of the plan.