Sahel

Yusuf Abdullahi stood beside the only well left in his town, its rim ringed with rust and water tinted a cloudy brown. For decades, the people of Bultu Briya, a village in Nigeria’s northeastern Adamawa State, had pulled their lives from this liquid in the ground, whether drinking, cooking, or watering their animals. But now, he said, the well has turned against them.

When the rains came last year, children who drank from the well fell sick with diarrhoea and clutched their stomachs in pain. The community had no choice but to abandon it forever. 

In Bultu Briya, desertification has seeped into the very veins of the villagers’ lives. Runoff washes through the encroaching sand each rainy season, leaching minerals like potassium into the water and leaving it contaminated, according to villagers, who claim it has made the water poisonous. More than 2,000 people once relied on this well, but many have already gone to nearby towns, across the border into the Niger Republic, and even as far as Libya, chasing survival in places where the sand has not yet stolen the water.

Behind Abdullahi, the desert stretched out in ridges of sand where millet fields once ripened and acacia trees once stood. The land that fed generations is now barren, and its people scattered. 

Bultu Briya was not always like this. Half a century ago, the Sahara Desert stopped far to the north, and life here followed the rhythm of the rains. In the 1980s, families could still fill their granaries with millet and sorghum. Children herded goats through pastures that turned green after the storms, and wells ran deep enough to sustain people and livestock.

That world has since vanished. 

Over the past four decades, the Sahara has expanded by nearly 10 per cent, pushing its southern edge steadily into the Sahel. In Nigeria alone, desertification currently threatens 11 of the country’s 36 states, with dunes advancing at an estimated 0.6 kilometres per year. In Yusufari, a local government area of Yobe State, satellite analysis shows that between 1984 and 2021, vegetation cover shrank by over 90 per cent, while surface water declined by more than 70 per cent.

Land cover change in Yusufari from 1984 to 2021

Graphics by HumAngle/CCIJ (2022), Data: Landsat Landcover analysis

By the early 2020s, the shifting dunes had crept so close to Bultu Briya that fields that were once heavy with grain were reduced to ridges of sand, and the acacia trees that anchored the soil were uprooted one by one.

The sand has already consumed neighbouring villages. In Tulo-Tulo and Bula-Tura, dunes pressed so close that families abandoned their homes. In Zakkari, a town 30 miles away, residents say they have not harvested a whole crop in more than seven years.

“When we were growing up, there was no desert here,” said Mohammed Bukar, 51, who has lived in Zakkari all his life. “As children, we cut grass for our livestock. Now farming is finished. Before, we filled a granary. Now we can’t even fill a sack.”

Scarcity of resources like food and water forced many of his neighbours to leave long ago. Some boarded buses bound for Lagos or Abuja, while others slipped quietly into the Niger Republic, hoping for better soil. Those who remain survive on what little their goats can graze. “We sell our animals just to eat,” Bukar said.

As armed conflict, extremist violence, rural terrorism, and economic despair uproot locals in the heart of the Sahel, a catastrophic climate collapse is accelerating transnational mobility. A HumAngle investigation, involving cross-border reporting and interviews with climate refugees in Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Niger Republic, reveals that the phenomenon driving families away from home is beyond just war, as climate crises toughen up. Matched with open-source analyses and satellite imagery investigation, the on-the-ground reporting shows how desert encroachments, poisoned or vanishing water resources, and extreme weather are making communities unlivable across the Sahel, sparking a refugee crisis driven by a hostile climate.  

The exodus

In many villages across northeastern Nigeria, the story is more chilling: As the desert advances, the farms collapse, the water dries up or becomes contaminated, and people leave. Some journeys are short. Families in Yobe, for instance, walk across the border into the Niger Republic, where relatives have settled in refugee-like encampments. Others are longer and more perilous. In Bultu Briya, 31-year-old Sani Bagira was preparing for his third attempt to reach Libya.

In his first attempt, he walked through Niger to Agadez and then paid smugglers for a ride north. It took him a week to reach Libya. He worked for two years as a farmhand, harvesting tomatoes and melons, before returning home with his savings. But the money was gone. His second journey lasted four years. He says he had no choice but to try again this time. But it was not rosy at their destination either.

“In Libya, they don’t love us,” he said. “They cheat us, they shoot us. You work three months and they throw you out without pay. But at least there, you can eat. Here, nothing.”

He rubbed his palms together, dry and cracked from years of farm work that no longer yields gain. “If we had food and water, we would never go,” he said, sitting on a low stool outside his mud-brick home, referring to his home town in Nigeria, “but here, we would die.” 

In 2022, the United Nations Refugee Agency predicted and warned that countries across the Sahelian states might face a new wave of conflict and mass displacements driven by rising temperatures, resource scarcity, and food insecurity. These predictions are turning into a dangerous reality as described, and the human toll is devastating, as many communities live in ruin or are devoid of human existence.

“Rising temperatures and extreme weather in the Sahel are worsening armed conflict, which is already destroying livelihoods, disrupting food security, and driving displacement,” said the global agency’s Special Advisor for Climate Action, Andrew Harper, in the report. “Only a massive boost in collective climate mitigation and adaptation can alleviate the current and future humanitarian consequences.” 

The report examined 10 Sahelian countries, including Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Senegal. It stated that unchecked climate emergencies like floods, droughts, and heatwaves will force more people to leave their homes for a saner world. 

HumAngle interviewed scores of locals trapped outside their homes, desperately searching for food and water sources, fertile lands and safer places to trade and thrive. While some showed interest in returning home to re-establish their lives, others said home was not a place to return to, as it reeks of ruins and devastation. 

Lukmon Akintola, the knowledge associate at the Global Centre for Climate Mobility, elaborated on the UN Refugee Agency’s predictions, stressing that transboundary climate migration is not the real problem but the lack of management on the part of authorities. The climate mobility expert believes that the best way to contain the climate-driven refugee crisis is to have conscious policies, such as planned relocation and climate adaptation schemes. He said that transboundary crises might emanate from these movements without conscious efforts. 

“Why are they moving? The lack of water? Build boreholes for them. Why do they want to move? There is desert encroachment. How can we build trees? But while we are trying to do that, do we have some sustainable solutions? Building trees is a nature-based solution,” he advised, noting that the government can adopt short-term solutions while planting trees for the long term.

“One way to manage people moving in and out is to help them adapt to their current location. Invest in adaptation strategies, starting from a blueprint or a policy, but also, like I said, engage with them. What do you want? Would you like to migrate? So I’m saying that even if they want to move, it will be because their agency decides to, and they are moving with the right knowledge.”

‘Without water, there’s no life’

Water is the difference between staying in one’s place and leaving in much of the Sahel; in Yobe State, it is the difference between life and death.

At the abandoned well in Bultu Briya, 45-year-old Yaana Mohammed pointed to the empty shaft. Built decades ago with World Bank funds, the well is now condemned. Villagers stopped using it after the water killed four animals: a ram, a cow, and two goats.

The well is located beside a potassium-contaminated pond, which leaves its water tinged with potassium. 

“It is not good to drink,” said Mohammed. “But that’s all we have.” He raised his voice, as if speaking to an unseen official. “We have called the government many times. They came, they assessed, but nothing happened. For the sake of Allah, give us a borehole. Without water, there is no life.”

Locals told HumAngle that they now trek five to seven kilometres in search of safer water. Some walk to Kuwaska and Bula Modu, nearby villages with solar-powered boreholes and hand pumps. Those with motorcycles, cows, or camels carry jerry cans. The rest go on foot, trudging under the sun with plastic containers balanced on their heads. 

“We are in dire need of this water,” Abdullahi said.

While Mohammed and hundreds of his fellow villagers struggle for water, billions of naira earmarked for environmental protection, including projects meant to halt desertification, continue to vanish without accountability.

At the centre of this story is the National Ecological Fund, established in 1981 as Nigeria’s flagship program to confront erosion, flooding and desert encroachment. It was meant to be a lifeline for communities like Bultu Briya, but it has become a cash cow for political elites over the decades. Billions flow into the fund each year. In 2023 alone, more than ₦8 billion (about $5 million) was directed to the three northeastern states most vulnerable to desertification: Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe. However, audits have repeatedly shown that the money rarely reaches the ground.

Yobe offers a unique case study. In 2020, state officials announced a three-million-tree planting scheme, budgeted at ₦3 billion ($2 million), to create green shelterbelts around towns like Bultu Briya and Zakkari. Such belts, if implemented, could have slowed the encroaching dunes.

While the plan looked ambitious, on the ground, there was nothing.

Villagers remember a brief appearance and launch of the project and a token distribution of seedlings to officials present for the launch. The government dubbed the place Dasuwa forest, giving hope to the community of a new expanse of forest area in the Lawan Kalam community in Yobe State. But most of the plants dried up during the dry season without water. 

When we visited what was supposed to be the Dusuwa Forest in August 2025, we confirmed that the project had effectively disappeared. Except for a handful of dried seedlings in sight, the supposed forest is without trees. 

“The government has a way of launching the project during the rainy season so that the seedlings can survive with human efforts. But as soon as it’s the dry season, nobody monitors the plants and they quickly dry up,” says Usman Adamu, a youth leader in Yobe state.

In Bultu Briya, where dunes have contaminated the water, villagers said the tree planting scheme never reached them. Yusuf, a community member, explained that while they heard of trees being planted in other villages, Bultu was left out entirely. 

Despite this, Yobe secured an even bigger climate project in 2024. The African Development Bank gave the state a $50 million loan to plant 40 million trees, more than ten times the scale of the failed scheme. The announcement infuriated communities that had never seen a grove since the first project.

“If they cannot plant three million trees, how will they plant forty million?” asked Adamu.

When asked about these failures, Yobe State’s Ministry of Environment insisted the government is taking steps to combat desert encroachment. Officials pointed to partnerships with the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa, the UN Development Programme, and World Bank–backed initiatives like ACReSAL and the SOLID project. They also cited an advocacy tour to desert-prone LGAs and a tree-planting competition to reward residents who nurture seedlings.

However, the ministry did not address the central question of accountability, especially the one asking why the 2020 tree-planting project was left unmonitored, why the seedlings dried up, and who, if anyone, was held responsible.

On the question of water, the Ministry of Water Resources distanced itself from responsibility. “Only the Ministry cannot solve the issue,” a message forwarded to our reporter from a Ministry of Water Resources official read. “However, the local government council is responsible for solving the issue. As I am speaking to you now, no complaint from that village has reached us.”

But villagers say they have been calling for boreholes and clean water for years, and that officials came to “assess” the situation without bringing relief.

Speaking on the mishandling of climate financing in Yobe state, Lukmon of the Global Centre for Climate Mobility, a US-based organisation, found a gap in how the tree-planting schemes were funded. He noted that it is clear some funds channelled to tackle climate shocks in Yobe took the top-down approach, meaning that the funders only engaged the state actors and ignored affected locals.

“I would say the agency of local actors is vital to address climate mobility. You don’t just pass it from top to bottom. You need to work with people on the ground, a bottom-up approach. This is highly intersecting with existing challenges, and one of the ones that we have mentioned is that there is a big problem of ungoverned spaces, a big problem of poor socio-economic realities, and the climate change issue is just exacerbating these existing issues,” he stressed.

A sea of sand

The Yusufari local government is primarily arid, with agricultural activity limited to its southernmost regions. The predominant vegetation is Shrub/Scrub, a low-growing, woody plant community that includes grasses and herbs, adapted to the dry conditions. Trees are sparse, consisting of individual, drought-resistant desert species found in patches within the shrubland. Satellite analysis indicates vegetation covers less than 10 per cent of the land surface.

What villagers describe in Yusufari is visible from space. Satellite data shows that the northern part of Yobe has become one of the most fragile environments in the Sahel.

NASA’s GRACE satellites, which measure underground water, reveal that while some parts of the Sahel region have gained water in recent years, Yusufari has not. Its groundwater levels have stayed flat for two decades. That means wells are not being replenished the way they are in nearby areas.

On the surface, the story is the same. A land cover analysis by the European Space Agency shows that Yobe has about 12 per cent of its land dedicated to cropland, the highest share in the entire corridor. But satellite records reveal that Yobe, unlike its neighbours, is losing much of the farmland that sustains its people. 

Over the past 20 years, vegetation in Borno, Yobe’s neighbour to the east, has actually increased, and even Diffa and Zinder across the border in Niger have shown signs of improvement. Yobe, however, has gone in the opposite direction, with satellite data indicating a loss of nearly a quarter of its vegetation cover in just two decades. This makes the state especially vulnerable to desert-induced land degradation, since most of its population depends directly on farming for food and survival. 

“From above, the view is unmistakable,” said GIS analyst Mansir Muhammed, who led the study. “Yusufari is an island of villages in a sea of sand. In this kind of condition, environmental displacement is just inevitable.”

Pressure across borders

The effects of environmental collapse in areas like Bultu Briya and Yusufari are an exodus. But most are leaving the frying pan for the fire. 

Farmers in Adamawa’s Ganye town are now crossing into Cameroon, where they clash with local communities over land and water resources. In Yobe, villagers who flee into the Niger Republic face hostility from hosts who are also battered by drought. Migration flows in both directions. Cameroonians, fleeing their climate shocks, are moving into Nigeria’s Adamawa state. The influx has strained schools, markets, and water sources. The competition for resources is feeding suspicion between neighbours.

In Niger, desertification is close to a permanent threat, with over 50 per cent of the land showing signs of degradation, according to environmental assessments. A World Food Programme report noted that the country loses nearly 100,000 hectares of productive land to erratic rainfall, rising temperatures, and frequent droughts and floods yearly. The human toll is that about 2.2 million people are acutely food insecure, while an estimated 1.5 million children suffer from moderate acute malnutrition and 400,000 more from severe malnutrition.

Cameroon, too, is feeling the pressure. Communities in the northern regions bordering Nigeria and the Sahel face declining rainfall and increasingly erratic seasons. Competition for water, pasture, and arable land is intensifying and leading to localised conflicts that echo across the porous national borders.

Satellite imagery shows that those who flee Yusufari into neighbouring areas of Chad and northern Cameroon are likely to meet with advancing aridity and competition for land. Data from the Living Atlas’s World Atlas of Desertification, analysed using United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) metrics, classifies the entire Yusufari belt, stretching across Nigeria into Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, as an arid zone highly “susceptible to desertification.” In other words, migration along this corridor often leads people from one fragile landscape into another that is equally at risk.

Even where conditions look slightly better, the relief is often short-lived. Diffa and Zinder in Niger have shown some signs of greening and water recovery, but their soils remain fragile and dry. For instance, satellite imagery indicates that Diffa alone is nearly 80 per cent bare land. And the northern regions in Cameroon struggle with the same aridity as Niger. 

Hostile sky, horrible land

When Abubakar Mohammed of Borno state decided to move to Cameroon, the climate of drought and dune crises was at its peak. The season carried a smell of scorched earth, he said, but beyond that, repeated sounds of gunfire from Boko Haram terrorists were enough reason to leave. Mohammed had been a farmer in Borno all his life. But the rains grew erratic over the years, the lake receded, and the soil cracked under the sun’s relentless glare. Then came Boko Haram.

“They came at night,” Abubakar recalled, his voice low. “We heard the shouting, the shots. They burned the storehouse. We ran with nothing.” His family joined a stream of neighbours heading east, toward the border with Cameroon. The journey was long, the air thick with fear and the uncertainty ahead. The culprit for this mass exodus is a deadly combination of climate and conflict, two intertwined forces setting families apart and homes shattered in the northeastern region of Nigeria.

Abubakar’s forceful migration is a macrocosm of this deadly crisis, but he’s obviously not the only one moving with the violent climatic wind toward the Cameroon border. Farming was once stable back home, but that changed with a noticeable shift in the weather. “The water we had the previous year was not the same this year,” he lamented, pointing to a severe change in rainfall patterns. This water scarcity wasn’t just a natural phenomenon; it was exacerbated by massive tree felling, a direct contributor to desertification and drought. As the land dried up, the competition for water and viable grazing land turned deadly.

This is where the conflict began. The drying farmlands of the north pushed herdsmen south, forcing them to trespass on cultivated lands to feed their cattle. “They will come and put their cattle in people’s farms,” Abubakar said, describing a situation where dialogue was no longer an option. When farmers like him tried to protest, the response was swift and violent. “If we talk, they fight us. And some were killed as a result.” 

The conflict wasn’t a minor inconvenience; it was a full-blown crisis that cost Abubakar his two brothers and his elder brother. This brutal violence, coupled with a breakdown of law and order where “even soldiers know about the situation,” left him and his family with no hope for safety or justice. Their home was burned, and they were forced to flee for their lives. The six-day journey to Cameroon was a desperate escape from a land that no longer supported them.

For 25-year-old Christiana Yusuf, the decision to leave was not made in a single night of violence, but over years of watching the land betray her. In Adamawa State, her small plot had once yielded enough maize to feed her children and sell at the market. But the rains had shifted, arriving late and ending early. When they did come, they came in torrents, washing away seedlings in muddy floods.

“First the drought, then the floods,” she said. “We could not plant in time. We could not harvest enough. And then the fighters came.”

The Boko Haram fighters turned already fragile livelihoods into impossible ones. Markets closed. Roads became dangerous. Even tending to a field became a gamble with life. By the time Abubakar and Christiana reached the Cameroonian frontier, they were part of a much larger exodus. In the Far North Region of Cameroon, local authorities and aid agencies were already struggling to cope with the influx. Many new arrivals came from Nigeria’s Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, areas hit hardest by the twin crises of climate and conflict.

In Cameroonian villages like Fotokol and Kousseri, Nigerian families found shelter in makeshift camps or with host communities. But the welcome, though warm, was strained. “We share what we have,” said a Cameroonian farmer interviewed by aid workers, “but the land is not enough for all of us now.”

Now in a camp in Cameroon, Christiana still clings to her identity as a farmer, growing small patches of maize and onions. “My body is used to farming,” she said. Even in a new country, the scars of climate-induced conflict and loss of livelihood run deep. Abubakar learned to live in the camps with ration cards and water queues. Christiana tried to keep her children in school, but classrooms were overcrowded, with few teachers. The host communities, affected by erratic rains and climate disruptions, struggled to absorb the newcomers. Back home, competition for land, water, and grazing intensified. In some areas, especially in Yobe state, disputes between farmers and herders, fueled by climate-driven scarcity, erupted into violence, displacing even more people.

We spoke of scores of Nigerians who fled to Cameroon, especially in the Adamawa and Far North regions. All of them echoed one fact: The twin forces of climate and conflict driving them away from home persist. Although their host communities might be hostile to them, they said, going back home is never an option. For both Abubakar and Christiana, Cameroon was not an end, but a pause. They dream of returning to Nigeria, to a land that can once again sustain them. But they know that return is a dangerous fantasy without peace and a climate they can depend on.

“I want to go home,” Abubakar said, “but home must be safe. And the land must live again.”

Until then, they will remain among the thousands whose lives have been reshaped by the collision of two forces, one born of human conflict and the other of a changing planet. In the Lake Chad Basin, neither shows signs of relenting.

From frying pan to fire

Interestingly, the Niger Republic is both a transport hub and a destination for many migrants fleeing climate hostility in northeastern Nigeria. When most locals from Nigeria flee to Niger, they find the place not quite different; the climate shocks in the country terrify its citizens, just as in Yobe, Borno or Adamawa. While many have resorted to starting their lives all over again in Niger, others, like Sani, will only stop where the grass is greener. Sani would stay for a few months in Niger before finding his route to Libya, through Agadez. His reason? “Niger’s extreme weather is not any better.”

Many young Nigerian climate migrants have ventured into illegal gold mining in the Djado area of Nthe iger Republic. They would labour for days under the hellish weather before touching a gold cut. The terrain is hazardous, as terrorists exploit it, and host communities are not exactly welcoming. Water resources are the bone of contention, even on the Djado mining site. In rural communities, water is scarce, just as in villages in the Yusufari axis of Yobe state. This condition puts migrants in a tight situation, competing with local Nigeriens for limited resources. 

“We were working in atrocious conditions,” said Mahamadou Ibrahim, a local miner from the Maradi region, who claimed to have worked with dozens of Nigerian climate migrants on the Djado gold site. “I’ve never seen a site as difficult as Djado.” According to him, the main difficulty was the lack of water. Najib Harouna, another miner in Djado, described the situation to our correspondent: “First of all, you have no shelter. These are makeshift sheds, built with straw reinforced with plastic.  If it rains, all the rain pours down on you, and you can always hear gunfire in the vicinity. And then, there are the abuse and exploitation.

“Some well owners take people to drive them into the bush, do a week or two weeks digging, if you haven’t found anything, you can’t leave, unless you pay them what they spent on you.”

The gruelling conditions of working on the Djado mining site forced Sani to Libya, but when he got there, a more appalling situation brought him back to his home country. But there is more to the danger of moving to another man’s land in the name of climate hazards: continual communal clashes.

Locals in the Niger Republic told our correspondent that they often brawl with Nigerians seeking greener pastures over land and water resources. Ironically, Nigerian climate migrants are moving to communities in Niger facing similar issues to what pushed them beyond borders. What the locals told HumAngle matched a 2021 study by the International Organisation for Migration on how climate change is driving internal migration within towns in the Niger Republic and even beyond the country’s borders.

IOM’s investigators interviewed over 350 rural households in Niger and 147 internal climate migrants who had moved from different areas to Niamey. The study showed that rising temperatures (75.5 per cent), droughts (63.9 per cent), and strong winds (34.6 per cent) are the climatic drivers of forced displacements and migrations in the country.

“85 per cent of the population of Niger depends on the environment for their livelihood. Unfortunately, environmental and climate shocks such as droughts, floods, wildfires, erratic rainfall, and desertification are intensifying and impacting the livelihoods of communities. This is causing a growing number of people to leave their homes,” said Barbara Rijks, IOM Chief of Mission in Niger.

Way forward through COP

Sahelian states have been spotlighted as hotspots for extreme climate crises. During COP29 in Baku, African leaders tried to negotiate immediate climate financing to contain the region’s hostile climate shocks and environmental setbacks. Although a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) was established to raise $300 billion annually by 2035, the conference failed to deliver effective mechanisms to support the Sahel in combating climate hostility.

According to UNHCR, over 129.9 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide, with the Sahel contributing significantly due to compounding climate shocks and governance failures. The report noted how weak institutions, corruption, and limited capacity to manage conflict have hindered effective climate response, exacerbating forced migration and instability. Climate analysts reviewing the outcome of COP29 have urged the summit to prioritise African-led resilience strategies and transboundary climate adaptation risks (TCARs). Ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the analyst said the stakes for the Sahel are higher than ever, as African leaders call for binding standards for transparent governance and inclusive climate finance.

Climate mobility expert Lukmon said COP30 must confront the widening climate reality gap by scaling adaptation and financing resilience using a bottom-up approach. For the Sahel, the expert noted, this means investing in community-led solutions, strengthening governance frameworks, and ensuring that climate action translates into tangible protection for those most at risk.

“At the core of COP is the ability to discuss various aspects of climate change and forge partnerships. It is crucial to highlight that human mobility in the context of climate change is a growing reality, encompassing more than just forced displacement. Those of us working in this space prefer the term ‘mobility’over ‘migration’ to address related issues, including planned relocation,” he said.

Dorcas Ekupe and Amma Mousa contributed cross-border reporting/research. Mansir Muhammed analysed satellite images and illustrated maps. Satellite imagery was sourced from Google Earth Pro.

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Centre.

West Africa is becoming a silent powder keg that could explode into a cataclysmic situation in the next few years. As the world’s attention remains focused on Europe and the Indo-Pacific, Islamic extremist organizations are gaining traction and territory along Africa’s “coup belt.”

Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, all ruled by pro-Russian military juntas, are facing military defeats and setbacks by al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates. A spillover of the conflict could create a domino effect not only on the African continent but also in Europe and among various regional and world powers, all of which have vested interests in Africa.

Jihadist Foothold in the Maghreb

The Sahel region is haunted by a lack of political leadership, miscommunication amongst regional neighbors, and persistent military coups that have allowed extremist organizations to flourish. In the early 2010s, al-Qaeda’s Maghreb branch, AQIM, suffered degradation from counterterrorism operations in Algeria but found reinvigorated life from Mali’s instability.

Taking advantage of the 2012 Tuareg rebellion in Mali, jihadist groups affiliated with AQIM rapidly captured major Malian cities in the North and threatened to march South. In response to the jihadist threat, the West would conduct two major French-led interventions in Serval and Barkhane that pushed the al-Qaeda-led extremist factions back but did not defeat them fully.

Several Islamist militia factions and AQIM would formally merge to form Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) in 2017 to combat Malian, West African (ECOWAS), and Western forces, along with consolidating their remaining held areas. Using a lack of control on other neighboring borders, JNIM and later ISIS would spill over the insurgency into Burkina Faso, Niger, and others.

Rise of the Russian-Backed Juntas and Wagner Group Atrocities

The fight against JNIM and ISIS would take a major turn due to the rise of the coup belt, which is a domino effect of unstable governments being ousted by military officers, which led to hostile juntas across West Africa. Since 2020, coups have frequently taken place in Mali, Niger, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Gabon.

The blowback from the repeated coups became detrimental to countering ISIS and JNIM, as the military juntas refused cooperation with Western states that had the capabilities to target jihadists, train fledgling African militaries, and provide valuable intelligence. The Malian junta particularly ended collaboration with France and demanded a French withdrawal from their country, which Paris started in 2022, while the government denied being forced to leave.

Furthermore, the United States would lose its largest drone base on the continent in Niger as the Nigerian junta broke off military cooperation with Washington and demanded a withdrawal. The drift between the junta and the West left a powder keg that Russia would soon exploit.

The Kremlin dispatched the Wagner Group/Afrika Corps to prop up the juntas in the coup belt in a deal to provide ‘protection’ in return for resources. Outside of gas and oil, Russia also uses the black-market illicit resource trade from Africa to help fund its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian mercenaries are enshrined in atrocities along the coup belt, such as wholesale massacres of villages in Mali, sexual assaults, and using locals as slave labor to extract minerals. Furthermore, the presence of Russian mercenaries is turning Africa into another front of the Russo-Ukrainian War as Kyiv’s special forces conduct clandestine operations against the Afrika Korps in the region.

The Russian-backed Juntas Are Rapidly Losing Control

The aforementioned drift between regional blocs such as ECOWAS and Western states capable of providing resources that West African nations don’t have is having a detrimental effect on combating extremism in the region. In Mali, the brutality of the military junta and aligned African Corps mercenaries is now having a blowback, as both forces have attempted to subdue Tuareg separatists unsuccessfully.

In late July of 2024, several dozen Wagner and Malian junta soldiers were ambushed by Tuareg militia in Tinzaouaten, marking the deadliest ambush for Russian mercenaries in Africa in several years. Further losses have led to one-third of Malian territory either being contested or controlled by JNIM or ISIS as of 2025.

Niger’s junta government is also facing setbacks from extremist militias. Without U.S. advisors and the drone base supplementing local Niger forces, ISIS’s Sahel-affiliated IS-GS now has a foothold that encompasses Western Niger’s territory. Digressing from ECOWAS and having a diplomatic conflict with Nigeria, Niger no longer has cross-border cooperation on counterinsurgency operations, which Boko Haram, IS-GS, and JNIM are taking advantage of.

Burkina Faso’s security situation is rapidly deteriorating under Ibrahim Traore, the most pro-Russian junta leader in West Africa. Currently, 40% of Burkina Faso’s territory is under the control of or contested by JNIM.

Russia has been unable to stop the advance of the Islamist extremist groups through its Wagner and Africa Corps mercenaries due to several factors. With the war in Ukraine causing a plethora of equipment losses to the Russian military, Moscow has been unable to fulfill defense contracts of weapon exports to their allies and interests in Africa. After losing influence in Syria, the South Caucasus, and, to a lesser extent, Central Asia, the Kremlin could also lose its key West African juntas as their invasion of Ukraine ties down critical assets.

Implications for Africa and Europe

Growing regional instability in West Africa will have looming negative effects for outlying countries in the region. With the junta’s disengagement in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations with more experienced countries, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other extremist groups will continue to grow or perhaps even take over key provincial capitals, as seen with decades of combating extremism in Somalia.

Jihadist groups historically implemented archaic forms of sharia law that include frequent executions for minor infractions. Because of fears of what JNIM and ISIS will implement, along with atrocities committed by the junta, a brewing, exacerbated refugee crisis could unfold in both Africa and Europe.

Russia has used armed conflicts in Africa to its advantage, particularly due to the refugee crisis, which plays into Moscow’s hybrid warfare strategy. Using Islamist insurgencies that fuel the refugee crisis towards Europe plays into the Kremlin’s strategy of attempting to prop up pro-Russian political parties under the guise of anti-migration, as seen in Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, France, and others.

Regional security and stability are crucial to the interests of Africa, the West, and the East. The lack of governance enacted by the juntas, along with their failures in counterinsurgency, is now having negative consequences on the continent. Unless the coup-belt officers turn course and allow regional coordination to combat al-Qaeda and ISIS, the jihadists will continue to gain ground and perhaps create a major base of operations not seen since ISIS’s ‘caliphate’ that stretched across large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

Parakou, Benin – Until a few years ago, the sound of Iliyasu Yahuza’s matte black Qlink X-Ranger 200 motorbike would bring the neighbourhood children out into the street. They would abandon their games and rush to the roadside, waving excitedly and shouting his name.

Now, they scatter and hide.

And it is not just the children; across all walks of life in the remote villages of northern Benin, the rumble of a motorbike engine now stirs fear and terror as it’s become synonymous with armed fighters roaming the region.

For Yahuza, a 34-year-old trader who has spent years navigating the bumpy roads between remote farms and local markets, the switch “cuts deep”.

His motorbike was once a symbol of success in his community in rural Brignamaro, some 500km (310 miles) away from the capital city, Porto-Novo. Now, he feels it’s a liability that marks him as a potential threat.

“People have begun seeing me as a member of the armed group launching attacks in this region,” Yahuza told Al Jazeera.

“I no longer feel secure riding a motorbike.”

In recent years, motorcycles have become the preferred mode of transport for armed groups operating not only in Benin, but across the Sahel from Burkina Faso to Mali to Niger. Fighters on motorbikes have changed the face of conflict, experts say.

According to a 2023 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), motorbikes are “one of the most widely trafficked commodities in the Sahel”, deeply embedded in the region’s criminal economy, and “indispensable to the violent extremist armed groups” operating in West Africa’s borderlands.

In the process, public sentiment towards these vehicles, and those who drive them, has shifted, with a shadow now cast over daily riders like Yahuza.

Pride before the fall

Life in Brignamaro used to move to a different rhythm years ago, Yahuza remembers. Children’s laughter chased the echo of his Qlink X-Ranger – at that time a rarity in these parts – as his peers looked on in admiration and delight.

The shift began in 2023, when approximately 12 suspected armed fighters, all mounted on motorbikes, attacked his community.

They terrorised the village and kidnapped a known businessman. Throughout that year, similar incidents rippled across northern Benin’s provinces, from Alibori to Tanguita and Materi. The pattern was always the same. Armed men would arrive fast, strike hard, and disappear into the landscape on their versatile machines.

As a businessman dealing in soya beans, maize, and groundnuts, Yahuza had chosen his motorbike for purely practical reasons. The vehicle could navigate the rough terrain connecting scattered farming communities, and would last longer than ordinary motorcycles.

“That was the major reason I chose the motorbike. Also, it lasts longer than an ordinary motorcycle and for that, it takes about two years before I change one,” he explained.

But more recently, practicality has given way to paranoia.

Security forces regularly stop Yahuza, demanding documentation and explanations. Even minor disagreements with neighbours can take on sinister undertones.

“The locals in my community are raising eyebrows at me. I could remember having a minor misunderstanding with a colleague, and he was quick to profile me as a militant,” he recounted.

Weapon of choice

Much like the Toyota pick-up trucks that became synonymous with ISIL (ISIS) fighters in Syria and Iraq more than a decade ago, motorbikes have emerged as the tactical vehicle of choice for Sahelian fighters.

Groups like al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), with an estimated 6,000 fighters forming the region’s most heavily armed rebel force, have perfected the art of motorcycle warfare. Fast, nimble, and easy to conceal, these bikes enable hit-and-run tactics perfectly suited to the Sahel’s vast, sparsely populated terrain.

In early 2025 alone, JNIM fighters launched a coordinated campaign of attacks: 30 soldiers killed in Benin, more than 50 people near Kobe in Mali, 44 worshippers in Niger’s Fambita, and 200 troops at Burkina Faso’s Djibo military outpost. In each assault, motorbikes provided the speed and surprise that made these attacks possible.

“Motorbikes have become a critical mobility tool for terrorists, including bandits across the Sahel,” explained Timothy Avele, a counterterrorism expert and managing director of Agent-X Security Limited.

The appeal is multifaceted, according to the expert. “Concealment becomes easier” when fighters can scatter and hide their vehicles. The Sahel’s challenging terrain, with desert expanses, dense forests, and mountainous regions, “favours two-wheeled transport over larger vehicles”. Perhaps most importantly, the economics work in the fighters’ favour.

“Another key factor is the lower fuel cost using motorbikes for their operations and mobility compared to, say, Hilux trucks,” Avele added.

Built to last

In the workshop of Abdulmajeed Yorusunonbi in Tchatchou, some 510km (317 miles) from Porto-Novo, the 31-year-old mechanic swears by the durability of these machines. As a local mechanic, he sees firsthand why armed groups favour these vehicles over ordinary motorcycles.

“The only simple fault motorbikes sometimes get is flat tires. It’s only on rare occasions that you will see the engine needing a repair. Their durability is second to none,” Yorusunonbi noted.

This reliability makes them perfect for rebel operations, where mechanical failure could mean capture or death. But it also means that once acquired, these vehicles remain in the hands of armed fighters for years, multiplying their tactical value.

Like many in his trade, Yorusunonbi has developed his own informal screening system to filter out unscrupulous clients. He watches for telltale signs – customers who pay in cash without haggling, those who avoid eye contact, or groups arriving together. But in a region where poverty is widespread and many legitimate customers share these same traits, certainty remains elusive.

The psychological impact on communities has been profound. Yaru Mako, 41, a farmer in Kerou, 482km (300 miles) from Porto-Novo, told Al Jazeera he now forces himself to believe that whoever drives a motorbike has affiliations with the armed groups. “Because in all the cases of attacks we have had and heard, the perpetrators always used motorbikes. Mostly, they are two persons per motorbike,” he explained.

This suspicion has real consequences. In early 2024, Yahuza found himself detained for hours by soldiers in Kerou who questioned his identity and motives. Only his local connections saved him from a worse fate.

“I was lucky that I know many people who properly identified me as an innocent person,” he said.

Junaidu Woru, a Tanguita resident, voices what many now believe: that non-fighters should abandon motorbikes entirely for their own safety.

“Innocent people should avoid using those bikes for their own safety. Because when an attack happens, and an innocent person drives around the area at that particular time, they can be mistaken for a militant,” he warned.

The underground economy

The flow of motorbikes into the hands of armed groups follows complex routes through West Africa’s porous borders. Benin, once a major importer of motorcycles, saw its official trade disrupted in 2022 when new taxes were imposed, including higher VAT rates and import levies.

Before that, motorcycles were exempt from import duties. The government later imposed customs levies to boost domestic revenue, a fiscally driven move. However, the policy spurred increased smuggling through border hotspots like Malanville and Hillacondji, raising security concerns about untracked vehicles potentially reaching criminal groups in the Sahel.

According to traders in northern Benin, these measures have pushed the trade underground, with buyers increasingly sourcing bikes from neighbouring countries and smuggling them across borders. The motorcycles enter through various routes; from Nigeria across the northern border into Niger, or through Beninese territory, where they are loaded onto pirogues and transported upstream on the River Niger.

In Parakou’s markets, Zubair Sabi sells motorbikes like Yahuza’s Qlink X-Ranger 200 for about 900,000 CFA francs ($1,590). Some models fetch more than one million CFA ($1,770), while others sell for as low as 750,000 CFA ($1,330), prices that put them within reach of well-funded armed groups.

“As a businessman, all I’m interested in is selling my goods,” Sabi said, before acknowledging the moral complexity of his position. “I don’t mind verifying the identity of the customer before selling to them. But I can’t really say who exactly is buying the bikes or what they are using them for.”

Like other traders, Sabi has implemented informal checks, asking for identification, noting suspicious bulk purchases, or refusing sales to unknown customers arriving in groups. Yet, he admits, these measures are far from foolproof.

Governments across the Sahel have responded with blunt instruments, with at least 43 motorcycle bans having been recorded since 2012, according to GI-TOC. Yet these sweeping restrictions often hurt civilians more than armed fighters, cutting off rural communities from markets, clinics and schools.

For traders like Yahuza, the situation presents an impossible dilemma. Without his motorbike, he cannot reach the remote farms where farmers sell their produce. With it, he risks being mistaken for the very criminals terrorising his community.

“It’s not just about riding any more,” he reflected. “It’s about what people think when they see you on it.”

This article is published in collaboration with Egab.

The ideological battlegrounds of northern Nigeria are disintegrating into a shadow war of self-interest, racial hierarchies, and fragmented loyalties. Once defined by rigid command structures, today’s extremist threat is unrecognised, more volatile, decentralised, and shaped by trauma, greed, and chaos spreading in the Sahel.

Nowhere is this transformation more visible than in the Lake Chad and northwestern corridors, where fighters once bound by allegiance to leaders like Abubakar Shekau now operate as scattered cells, many with no allegiance beyond the immediate spoils of violence. After Shekau’s brutal demise in 2021 at the hands of ISWAP, his loyalists either vanished into civilian communities or re-emerged under new, hyper-localised identities in places like Zamfara, Niger, and Kogi, and they are now emerging in large numbers in Plateau State. Without a central ideology or external coordination, many of these cells have adopted a hybrid identity: part insurgent, part bandit, part mercenary. They extract taxes, conduct kidnappings, and mete out selective justice on communities, not in service of any doctrinal purity, but to retain control and fear.

In the face of racism and setbacks, two jihadists fight on

Deep within Sahelian jihadist networks lies a festering problem rarely acknowledged publicly: the racism faced by Black African fighters at the hands of their Arab and Tuareg counterparts. Slurs like Sammara (slave) or Zool are commonplace within militant camps in Libya, Algeria, Mali, and Niger, echoing the same historical contempt that fueled slave routes centuries ago. For many sub-Saharan fighters, these insults are more than rhetorical. They are reminders that in the eyes of their comrades, they remain expendable.

Two former foreign fighters, now back on the frontlines of northwestern Nigeria, spoke exclusively to HumAngle through an intermediary. “Internal rifts and betrayals amongst mujahideen have made collective operations against their enemies near-impossible,” said Abu Maryam. Now isolated, Abu Maryam and three of his friends navigate the perilous landscape of northwest Nigeria, drifting from one group after another.

He left Libya after he could no longer tolerate the racial slurs. “No matter how good you are, if you are fighting among Arab fighters, you are likely to remain a Jundun bila rutba (a soldier without a rank), with rare chances of growing through the ranks to become a Munzir or Ka’id (senior members of military wings),” he said. “I have seen several dark-skinned brothers like me, and on some occasions, they have called me Sammara.”

Abu Maryam left the Fezzan region of Libya in 2022, after spending two and a half years there, because he experienced racial slurs and saw no effort to address the problem. “I had previously lived in Mali, so I didn’t stay there; I came straight to Bosso in Lake Chad to fight alongside fellow mujahideen of ISWAP.” He noted that with ISWAP, fighters initially had a strong bond. However, hatred emerged among brothers who once fought alongside each other but disagreed only on doctrine yet chose violence instead of dialogue to settle their differences. “There was an obsession to control everyone, which was unbearable for me. While I don’t like some Arabs because of racial discrimination, they are not intoxicated with power like I have seen in Lake Chad.”

Another Jihadist interviewed for this article, who gave his name only as Ibrahima, said he was a victim of racial discrimination in his home country of Niger, specifically in the desert of Agadez. He fought alongside some Tuaregs associated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. He did not provide many details about his past; it’s likely Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). He left shortly after and joined ISWAP in early 2022, where he met Abu Maryam. The two bonded quickly because of their similar Hausa and Arabic dialects and experiences as mid-ranking fighters. As fate would have it, both later defected along with a group of fighters and are now reportedly operating in Sokoto.

“We are not aligned with ISWAP since we left our Mubaya’a without permission, and now that we are fighting without a caliph, it makes our Jihad incomplete,” he said.

According to Abu Maryam, ISWAP in Lake Chad is the most organised among all the groups he fought alongside since 2019, when he chose the path of violence as an expression of his religious beliefs. However, constant leadership feuds and disproportionate punishments in ISWAP, such as death or imprisonment for merely possessing a mobile phone or transistor radio, drove them away. “This is why we left,” Abu Maryam said, “because punishment for every wrongdoing must adhere to the provisions of Sharia.”

“We were fighting for justice, but all I found in Agadez was bigotry. Here [referring to ISWAP], it’s no better; leaders fight over money and control. I’m done for now. I’ll wait until I find a cause, a leader worth following,” Ibrahima confessed.

A close observer of Nigeria’s conflict landscape highlighted a significant oversight in Nigeria’s counter-violent extremism program. He noted that the programme failed to exploit certain vulnerabilities among the insurgents, which could have been leveraged to further fracture their ranks. Regrettably, individuals such as Abu Maryam and Ibrahima did not participate in the federal government’s various deradicalisation initiatives. Instead, they have aligned with numerous other fighters, establishing new fronts and forming small, dispersed criminal gangs that are increasingly becoming difficult to track and contain.

Local authorities have the potential to exploit these racial tensions by sending targeted messages, promoting defections, and cultivating distrust among various factions and individuals. A good example of this is the brilliant manner in which Nigerian intelligence capitalised on the demise of Abubakar Shekau to create a pathway for thousands of Boko Haram defectors and residents within their sphere of influence to leave. The extended olive branch was so inviting that it even drew in members from opposing factions, like ISWAP.

The deep roots of racism against Sub-Saharan Africans

This longstanding prejudice against Black Africans has manifested in various forms over centuries, reflecting broader societal attitudes and systemic inequalities that persist to date.

In the 1880s, the Mahdist State in Sudan emerged as an anti-colonial religious movement. However, the regime implemented racial distinctions, creating a divide between the Nile Valley Arabs and the Black Africans. The Black skin fighters, despite their crucial role in military campaigns, remained marginalised in matters of governance and spiritual leadership.

In the context of Libya’s ongoing civil war, sub-Saharan migrants have reported severe racial profiling. A slogan that praises rebel fighters for purging Black slaves was boldly written on a poster in Misrata during the fighting that toppled and killed Libya’s former leader, Muammar Gaddafi. 

Black African fighters from Mauritania, Mali, and Niger, who are part of AQIM and its associated groups, have consistently expressed concerns about their treatment as disposable combatants. The leadership landscape there is predominantly characterised by Arab or Tuareg fighters. Numerous accounts from defectors over the years lend support to the lived experiences of Abu Maryam and Ibrahima.

The internal divisions within JNIM in Mali and Burkina Faso highlight a complicated relationship that includes doctrinal disagreements alongside underlying tensions between Tuareg leadership and Black African foot soldiers. This dynamic has resulted in Bambara, Songhai, and Hausa fighters experiencing discrimination, according to multiple accounts.

Additionally, despite ISIS’s claims of a worldwide recruitment initiative, Black African fighters were either absent from their propaganda videos or not placed in leadership roles during the peak of their operations in Iraq and Syria. Numerous fighters from Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan have expressed concerns regarding racial isolation and a tendency to be assigned to high-risk missions at a disproportionate rate.

Systemic flaws crippling Nigeria’s counter-terrorism: Data, Identity, and Borders

Nigeria’s failure to consolidate and enforce a unified national biometric database means the state cannot verify who resides within its borders nor who crosses them. This void undermines virtually every aspect of counter-terrorism: Suspects can acquire dozens of SIM cards under false identities or without registration. Although Nigeria mandates NIN-SIM linkage, enforcement remains poor. Criminals discard and switch phones with ease, evading tracking and surveillance. There is no interoperable system linking national ID, voter registration, police records, immigration, and telecom data. Such information makes cross-checking identities across institutions impossible. 

Fighters from Mali, Niger, and Cameroon move freely into Nigeria through routes like the Illela–Birnin Konni axis, the Damasak–Diffa corridor, and the Baga–Lake Chad region. Intelligence gathering and sharing remain fragmented across agencies like DSS, NIA, police, and military. Without a unified database or command structure, actionable intelligence about suspects’ movements, aliases, and contacts is often lost or buried in bureaucracy.

Aside from the borders, even city centres remain porous. In one instance, a former captive reportedly encountered one of his terrorist captors in a mosque in Kaduna. In another, fighters were reported by HumAngle to have evaded official radicalisation programmes by the government and are living normal lives in communities they once referred to as Darul Kufr (land of disbelievers), where they once killed such residents at will.

HumAngle’s continuous investigations in Nigeria and West Africa have shown that former Boko Haram fighters who have not migrated to new battle zones or participated in government deradicalisation programs now work as mechanics, artisans, and market vendors, with some even becoming Uber drivers in major cities.

The reasons some of these fighters gave HumAngle for abandoning local groups are similar to the accounts of Abu Maryam and Ibrahima in the Maghreb. Ethnic tensions remain a major obstacle to cohesion within local armed groups in Nigeria. After the death of Boko Haram leader Shekau, efforts to centralise leadership faltered, partly because some of the commanders considered most eligible were non-Kanuri, highlighting deep-seated tribal divisions.

Within ISWAP, non-Kanuri fighters have also complained of exclusion from key meetings that were mainly conducted in Kanuri. In the northwest, Fulani-dominated groups are similarly resistant to outside leadership. These dynamics reveal how ethnicity continues to shape power and loyalty more than ideology.

In a nation lacking a comprehensive database and where obtaining a SIM card is as straightforward as purchasing a bus ticket, tracking communications and migration of terrorists and other criminals have become a formidable challenge. Fighters exploit Nigeria’s digital opacity, activating and discarding phone numbers at will. Law enforcement, often under-equipped and under-trained, chases shadows across digital landscapes they can neither map nor monitor.

The result is a security architecture built on guesswork. Analysts and security forces continue to lump diverse threats under the blanket term “Boko Haram”. In southern Nigeria, nearly all kidnappers are classified as “Fulani herders”, failing to distinguish between ideological cells, rogue vigilantes, ethnic militias, and survivalist criminal gangs. It also feeds ethnic profiling in northern Nigeria, as observed by several HumAngle reports. 

Yusuf Anka, an award-winning former conflict reporter in northwest Nigeria, said, “If Fulanis are negatively profiled in the north, imagine what their experience in southern Nigeria could be.” The costs of this misdiagnosis have been misdirected airstrikes, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances, and a loss of trust with communities that could otherwise assist intelligence efforts in containing the problem.

From Mali to Borno, from Libya to Zamfara, what we are witnessing is a continental contagion, a pattern of fragmentation, racial tension, and decentralised violence. Terrorism and violent crime threats have gone from coordinated ideology to disjointed insurgency and criminal networks. And Nigeria is now one of its most combustible frontlines.