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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the international community to support West Africa's fight against armed groups, saying the region was on the "front line" and not could contain the spread of violence.
The spread of violence shows no signs of weakening in the Sahel region, where armed groups have gained ground and displaced millions of people in much of the crisis zone.
Guterres said on Wednesday that the problem was spreading beyond the region and that the strength of the G5 Sahel – a joint military effort from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Mauritania – needed to be addressed. More external support.
"We are sadly seeing that terrorism is progressing," Guterres told reporters at the opening of a two-day conference on counter-terrorism in Africa in Nairobi, Kenya's capital.
"It started in Mali, then in Burkina Faso, in Niger, and now, when we talk to the presidents of Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire, they say that terrorism is spreading to their borders. "
The UN chief said it was essential that African forces have "strong and clear" UN Security Council mandates "backed by sufficient, predictable and sustainable financial support".
"I think it would now be important for us to be ready to support any African initiative involving all countries in the region," he said.
The presidents of West Africa "believe that we need a much stronger and more collective response and that the international community must find the mechanisms to support it fully".
"Incomprehensible situation"
The Sahel G5 leaders have repeatedly called for a mandate under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter – measures that could authorize the use of sanctions and military intervention in situations where peace and security are threatened.
Their requests were refused, which Guterres regretted. He added that funding for the G5 Sahel force was slow in coming.
The chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, said he "hardly understand the procrastination of the international community" in funding security operations on the continent.
"It's an incomprehensible situation, the phenomenon is intensifying," Mahamat said.
As in Syria and Iraq, "the entire international community must be mobilized to face a phenomenon with the same characteristics," he added.
The Nairobi meeting is a regional version of the first-ever world conference on "terrorism", organized by the UN in 2018 in New York.
Al Jazeera's Malcolm Webb told the UN that the UN was following up with five regional counter-terrorism conferences, the second being the Nairobi meeting.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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