The world rarely glances at Mali anymore. It’s too far, too dry, too complicated, a country where history, geography, and despair conspire to keep outsiders at arm’s length. But in the heart of West Africa, a storm is gathering. Jihadi fighters linked to al Qaeda are inching closer to Bamako, Mali’s capital, carving out pockets of control and leaving behind the ashes of what was once considered a fragile democracy. This is not a sudden eruption; it is the continuation of a fire long smouldering across the Sahel, now threatening to engulf the region and, in time, much of Africa itself.
To understand this creeping catastrophe, one must look beyond the current headlines of “terrorist advances” and “security concerns.” What is unfolding in Mali and in neighbouring Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad, is the slow unravelling of the postcolonial state system that Europe left behind, stitched together by arbitrary borders and brittle governments. The promise of independence decades ago has soured into a patchwork of coups, juntas, and fragile regimes, all of which now face an emboldened, ideologically ruthless enemy that thrives on chaos.
Al Qaeda’s affiliates in the Sahel are not the ragtag insurgents of yesteryear. They are disciplined, mobile, and remarkably attuned to the social fault lines that define local life. They do not always storm villages with rifles raised. Instead, they infiltrate communities by offering justice where the state has failed, food where the government has stolen, and protection where the army has abused. It is a twisted form of governance but governance nonetheless. For villagers who have seen nothing but neglect from Bamako or Niamey, the fighters offer a perverse kind of order.
Meanwhile, the Malian government ruled by a military junta since 2021, has grown increasingly isolated. After expelling French forces and distancing itself from Western partners, it has leaned heavily on Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group, whose reputation for brutality now rivals that of the jihadists they claim to fight. The result has been a widening circle of bloodshed. Each airstrike that kills a suspected militant also kills a farmer, a shepherd, or a child. Every civilian death plants the seeds for the next generation of recruits.
And so, the map of Mali bleeds outward, one district at a time. Towns that once hosted garrisons now echo with gunfire and sermons. Roads once patrolled by blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers are abandoned to bandits and insurgents. The jihadists do not need to conquer Bamako overnight. They simply need to make it ungovernable, an objective they are perilously close to achieving.
What makes this crisis truly frightening is not its novelty but its familiarity. We’ve seen this pattern before: a weak state collapsing under the weight of corruption and neglect, extremist groups exploiting the vacuum, and the international community arriving too late, with too little understanding. Afghanistan should have taught us this lesson. Somalia should have reminded us. Yet here we are again, watching another region slip through our fingers, our gaze distracted by newer headlines elsewhere.
The Sahel’s instability is not contained by its desert borders. It spills outward, seeping into the porous frontiers of West and Central Africa. Niger, once hailed as a bulwark against extremism, is now under military rule and fighting its own insurgencies. Burkina Faso teeters on the same edge. Chad, that perennial survivor, faces its own internal fractures. And as each government falters, the jihadists expand, linking their networks from Libya to Nigeria, from the Atlantic coast to the Red Sea.
It is tempting for Western policymakers to shrug, to view the Sahel as another endless tragedy—a place too broken to fix. But the costs of inaction will not remain distant. Africa’s population is booming; its young people, restless and connected, will either find hope at home or seek it elsewhere. As violence drives communities from their villages, the waves of displacement will grow, pushing migrants northward across the Sahara and into the Mediterranean. What begins as a security crisis in Mali could easily morph into a humanitarian and political crisis for Europe.
There is also the moral cost. The people of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso are caught between two predators: extremists on one side and predatory regimes on the other. Their schools are closing, their farms abandoned, their children taken as soldiers or brides. To call this merely a “conflict” is to sanitize a slow-motion catastrophe. It is a human disintegration, one the world continues to watch in silence.
What can be done? Certainly not another foreign military intervention, at least not in the old mould. The French experiment has already shown its limits. The answer lies instead in rebuilding trust at the local level, supporting communities rather than regimes, and investing in governance rather than just guns. Mali and its neighbours need legitimacy, not lectures; they need partners who will help them plant seeds instead of drop bombs.
But perhaps the first step is simpler, and harder: attention. The world must start paying attention again. The Sahel is no longer a distant frontier; it is a fault line where climate change, poverty, and extremism collide. Ignoring it will not make it go away. Like a wildfire, it will burn until it reaches the forest.
For now, Bamako still stands its streets crowded and nervous. Markets hum with anxious trade, and radio stations murmur with rumours of approaching columns. The government insists all is under control, as governments always do. But the sense of foreboding is unmistakable, a feeling that the walls are closing in.
If Mali falls, it will not fall in a single dramatic moment, but inch by inch, as faith erodes and fear spreads. And when the fire reaches the capital, it will not be an isolated blaze. It will be the culmination of years of neglect, the inevitable consequence of a world that mistook silence for stability.
The slow-burning fire in the Sahel is not only Mali’s tragedy. It is Africa’s warning and perhaps the world’s, too.
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