By Daphne Psaledakis
(Reuters) -A group affiliated with Al Qaeda has killed dozens of civilians and eight soldiers so far this year in Togo, the country’s foreign minister told Reuters last week, in a rare official acknowledgement of the toll of rising attacks.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Robert Dussey said 15 attacks in northern Togo had been perpetrated so far this year by Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), an insurgent group in West Africa’s Sahel region. He put the civilian death toll at 54.
Togo has seen a rise in jihadist activity in recent years, as groups linked to Islamic State and al Qaeda have spread from the Sahel.
A surge in attacks in May and June marked one of the deadliest periods in the Sahel’s recent history, underscoring the threat posed by jihadist groups at a time when regional governments are estranged from former Western military allies, analysts say.
Violence in the region south of the Sahara started when jihadist groups hijacked a Tuareg rebellion in the north of Mali in 2012.
Groups linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State have since seized territory despite costly military efforts to push them back, spreading into Burkina Faso and Niger and more recently into the north of coastal countries such as Togo.
Thousands have been killed and millions displaced by the fighting.
Dussey told Reuters that there are about 8,000 Togolese forces in the north between Togo and neighboring Burkina Faso. Analysts say JNIM has been ramping up attacks in Burkina Faso.
Dussey said Togo’s cooperation with Burkina Faso was very good, and said that Togo acts as a bridge between the Economic Community of West African States, of which it is a member, and the Confederation of Sahel States, consisting of military-ruled Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Additional reporting by Robbie Corey-Boulet in Dakar; Editing by Don Durfee and Leslie Adler)
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