Morocco raised alarm about the proliferation of terrorist acts and attacks in Africa. It counts 19 separatist movements and is the second most dangerous region in the world.
This was delivered by the Moroccan Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita, Friday at the ministerial meeting for the African Union Peace and Security Council. This was the first meeting under Moroccan leadership during October.
Bourita, who was chairing the session via videoconference from Rabat, renewed the Kingdom’s commitment to put its experience in the fight against terrorism at the service of peace, especially in Africa where terrorist acts are proliferating. Africa is home to 19 separatist movements and is the second most terror-prone region in the world.
Morocco is committed to promoting South-South, North-South and triangular solidarity cooperation, in order to address the complex and transnational nature of the terrorist threat in Africa, he said, adding that this commitment is reflected first by the Kingdom’s accession to several sub-regional cooperation frameworks aimed at strengthening the collective capacity of African countries to protect their borders from transnational threats.
During this ministerial meeting on development and de-radicalization as levers in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism, he also referred to the efforts of the Kingdom in the field of de-radicalization, including through the establishment of specialized institutions to train African Imams, like the Foundation Mohammed VI of African Ulema “which is established as a real platform for exchange and sharing to address the misinterpretation of religious texts and messages.”
Bourita also stated that the Kingdom is committed in promoting and defending African security issues in the international agenda. This includes his three consecutive terms of co-chairing the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum, (GCTF), and his co-chairmanship the Africa Focus Group of The Global Coalition against ISIS.
With 48% of the victims of terrorism in the world are African, 7,234 terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of 28,960 victims in 2021 and 27 terrorist groups listed on the UN sanctions list, Africa is experiencing “an unprecedented proliferation of terrorist groups,” said Bourita, noting that the economic impact of terrorism in Africa over the past 10 years has amounted to 171 billion dollars.
The Sahel-Saharan region has become in a decade the second region of the world most affected by terrorism, the government official said noting that “this bleak picture should challenge us on the need to adopt a holistic approach that devotes more effort to the underlying factors fueling the proliferation of radicalization and terrorism on our continent.
Among these factors, Bourita cited “the latent multiplication” of separatist groups that “is now established as a real catalyst for political and security instability on the continent, by allying themselves with, or even absorbing, the agendas and modus operandi of terrorist and criminal entities.
Bourita stated that Morocco supports the establishment of a platform of collaboration between Member States to exchange expertise in deradicalization and the creation of a development fund for financing African collective action in socioeconomic and human development.
Twelve member countries made contributions to the meeting, knowing that the Peace and Security Council of the African Union is composed of 15 members.
Source: north africa post