On Monday, President of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum stated that Libya is a major source of arming jihadist factions active in the Sahel region. This was during the opening of the Dakar Forum for Peace and Security in Africa, where Bazoum added that the failure to combat arms trafficking from Libya was a grave mistake.
The President noted that the flow of weapons from Libya is the most important factor in spreading terrorism, “as terrorist groups’ weapons and ammunition are in large quantities, and were purchased at cheap prices through Libyan smuggling networks. The terrorists’ stockpile of some of these weapons exceeds the stocks of the regular forces, including RPG anti-tank missile launchers, and M-80 machine guns, the most used in these wars.”
“Never before in any part of the world have rebel groups obtained the same weapons in the possession of the regular forces that are fighting them, as is currently the case in the Sahel region,” he added.
On Saturday, Libya’s Minister of Labour and Rehabilitation, Ali Al-Abed Al-Reda and Niger’s Minister of Employment and Social Protection, Dr Ibrahim Boukary held a round table meeting with six officials from sub-Saharan Africa.
The meeting, attended by officials from the Labour Ministries of Chad, Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal, discussed ways of reaching a consensual approach to improving migration management and concluding memoranda of understanding over labour recruitment.
This comes against the backdrop of the agreement signed between Libya and Niger on 30 November. This was to ensure the protection of migrant workers by effectively issuing work visas before employment, and better responding to the needs of the Libyan labour market.
In November, Egypt hosted a meeting between members of Libya’s Joint Military Commission (JMC) and representatives of Chad, Niger, and Sudan; to discuss the issue of the withdrawal of mercenaries and foreign forces from Libya. The JMC said it had reached an agreement with Sudan, Chad, and Niger to withdraw their mercenaries and fighters frim the country.