The extraordinary meeting lasted two days. The chiefs of staff of the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 May in Accra. Their mission: to work to strengthen cooperation between States in order to fight against growing insecurity in West Africa.
Despite their suspension from ECOWAS bodies, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea had been invited to this meeting. In the end, only the Malian representative failed. “ The contribution of each other has made it possible to gain new momentum in the fight against terrorism “, declared General Francis Béhanzin, Commissioner of Political Affairs, Peace and Security within the sub-regional organization, at the end of this work, without giving further details.
Not a coastal country safe from jihadism
So what can we learn from these two days of discussion? that “No coastal country is currently safe from a jihadist attack. No country is more threatened than another. But all countries today are under threat of attacks by armed terrorist groups,” assures General Lassina Doumbia, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Côte d’Ivoire.
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The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Côte d’Ivoire also believes: “ It is up to us firstly that everyone, on their territory, take measures to defend it, and then that we set up a coordination mechanism between our different armies to be able to secure our territories and come to support the countries that are already faced with armed terrorist groups. And this meeting obviously allowed us to move forward in that direction. »
“Have a holistic approach”
For him, the answer cannot be solely military. “ It’s not just about fighting. But it’s about having a global approach “, he believes.
“Apart from the military action, several other actions must be carried out in these areas which we consider to be areas of vulnerability, in particular an increasingly increased presence of the State, increasingly effective support for the benefit of the populations so as to reduce all the vulnerabilities that these jihadist groups can exploit to enlist local populations”, assures General Lassina Doumbia.
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