The InterDependent

In the sandy Sahel desert of West Africa, a perfect storm of humanitarian crises threatens to destabilize a fragile region. The pressures start locally: A drier-than-normal year squeezed harvests, and food supplies are dwindling. Meanwhile, guns and people that exited Libya's revolution are now slipping back into Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Chad, and parts of Nigeria and Burkina Faso. Fighters who once stood by Libyan leader Muammar Al-Qadhafi have turned to causes closer to home, bringing their weapons with them. Civilians are returning from Libya too, ending years of remittances that had been vital to struggling families back home.

In short, the countries of the Sahel are facing the strongest economic and political pressures they have in years-at a time when they are least equipped to deal with them.

UN Photo/OCHA/David Ohana

Refugees flee Libya in March, 2011

In Mali, the risk of volatility is on vivid display. In mid-January, rebels from the country's Tuareg group in the north re-opened a long-running rebellion against the central government there. Rebel and government forces have been engaged in heavy fighting in recent weeks, both sides suggesting-but not agreeing-to enter into talks to restore the calm. Analysts blame the return of Tuareg mercenaries who fought in Libya-and their guns-on the most recent bout of fighting.

"It's not only the Tuaregs from Libya [who are fighting this time], but it seems that it is a contributing factor-it is at least aggravating the situation," said Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, spokesman for the refugee agency, by phone.

On Tuesday, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) announced that 20,000 civilians had fled the fighting so far, spilling over the border into Niger and Mauritania. Aid workers fear the humanitarian situation could get worse before it gets better. Aid agencies haven't operated in northern Mali for several years due to threats of kidnapping and violence. In Niger, 4 million citizens were already food insecure before the refugee influx began.

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The UN sounded alarm bells about the stability of the Sahel almost as soon as the fighting began in Libya last spring. For years, Col. Muammar Qadhafi had recruited citizens of Mali, Chad, Niger, and other countries of the Sahel to fill jobs in the military as well as countless industries and services. His influence touched every corner of politics in the region as well. He funded lush projects in Chad and the Tuareg rebellion in Mali, among countless others.

When revolution erupted in Libya, many of the African expatriates enlisted to fight in Qadhafi's forces were accused-correctly at times-of fighting on the colonel's behalf in his desperate and violence attempts to cling to power. Some accused mercenaries fled when the momentum shifted to the rebels; others were rounded up and are still being held by the new government. Laborers left, too. Because of the relative favor they found under Qadhafi, African migrants found themselves unwelcome in revolutionary Libya.

The result was "the influx of hundreds of thousands of traumatized and impoverished returnees," a UN expert report released in late January explains, "as well as the inflow of unspecified and unquantifiable numbers of arms and ammunition from the Libyan arsenal."

The influx of people is perhaps the most striking indicator of just how massive the impact of Libya's crisis has been. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) documented more than 200,000 returnees heading to Niger, Chad, Mali and Mauritania. The UN report, however, citing local government sources, estimates that the true number is likely double that-420,000-including 200,000 to Niger, 150,000 in Chad, 30,000 in Mali, and 40,000 in Mauritania.

Ninety-five percent of the returnees were male, most between the ages of 20 and 40-workers of one sort or another in Libya. "The majority of the returnees originate from the most impoverished and underdeveloped communities in the region," the report claims. "IOM estimates that, on average, each returnee supported over seven individuals in their home country."

Now, those remittances have dried up. And adding to the humanitarian crisis, aid groups are warning that food stocks are dwindling in many of the communities out of their reach. "We are already hearing that the little that some people have in some areas is being depleted," says Lejeune-Kaba.

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Dire as the food crisis may be, it is the political risk from a post-Qadhafi Sahel that may prove more daunting for the region's stability. Weapons from Libya have surfaced across the Sahel, most notably in Mali, where the Tuaregs have been employing them in their most recent assaults. UN experts in January listed the proliferated munitions as "rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with anti-aircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives (Semtex), and light anti-aircraft artillery (light calibre bi-tubes) mounted on vehicles."

And it's not just the number of weapons that is alarming-it's who's receiving them. In recent months, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has been working to infiltrate the Tuareg rebel groups in particular, according to UN Office of Drugs and Crime regional director Alexandre Schmidt, who participated in writing the report. (A spokesman for the Tuareg movement denied similar claims late last month.) Al Qaeda elements are already visible in the rebellion, he said by phone in Dakar, explaining that their broader strategy is to "support the local economy and then gain the trust of the groups."

Winning the trust of locals also means responding to real humanitarian needs-needs that are out of reach for international aid groups for security reasons. "In some areas, the humanitarian vacuum is being filled by Al-Qaida [sic] in the Islamic Maghreb and/or criminal elements who are reportedly providing services and humanitarian assistance in remote areas where State presence is reduced or non-existent," says the report. "This situation may enable Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb to develop recruitment and local support networks for gathering information, supplying arms and ammunition, and other logistics."

A final concern is emerging further south in Nigeria, where Islamist group Boko Haram stands to acquire some of the Libyan arms. Over the last year, the extremist movement from the country's north has killed 1,000 Nigerians in bomb attacks and other assaults.

Back in Mali, the UN and other aid groups are rushing to react to the immediate humanitarian crisis, airlifting food and other supplies to support refugees from ongoing fighting. But Lejeune-Kaba worries that the extent of the crisis isn't really even understood. "Right now we don't even have a clear picture of what's happening inside because we're not able to go in [for security reasons]," she said on Tuesday.

Regional governments are also bracing for turmoil. The government of Mali has set up a long-term program to re-establish government control of the country's north. It has also made overtures toward negotiations, provided that the rebels drop their demand for regional independence.

Lejeune-Kaba warns, "We could be in for more trouble if peace negotiations don't work out."