The Lake Chad crisis: the never-ending story 

When people think about terrorism, unconsciously and mistakenly, armed groups (Daesh, al-Qaeda) appear in the subconscious as if they were the only ones responsible for carrying out terrorist actions, and if we were to locate them at some point, it seems that Syria, Iraq and the Middle East in general are the only areas affected by this scourge; however, nothing could be further from the truth. In recent years, the African continent has been the victim of a growing number of terrorist groups which see the fragility of many of these countries as the perfect breeding ground for taking over their power.   

However, once we think of African terrorism, it may seem that we always end up thinking of the same conflict areas such as the Sahel or Somalia, etc. And while it is true that these areas are clearly suffering from the terrorist activity of the groups in their region, there is an area such as Lake Chad which, without much attention being paid to it, is being devastated. 

Lake Chad is geographically located south of the Sahel and Saharan deserts and is responsible for providing a livelihood for over 50 million people in the border area of the four Central African countries (Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad). It is an area of great strategic value due to its most precious resource: water. ⁱ When Lake Chad was discovered by Europeans in 1843 it was considered one of the largest in the world, but in recent centuries its size has been considerably reduced.  

One might then ask how it is possible that an area with so much agricultural wealth could find itself in such a worrying humanitarian situation, given that there are more than 7 million food-insecure people in the Chad basin. ⁱⁱ In this sense, a number of factors can be identified as driving forces behind the current crisis. 

The first of these was the political and economic marginalisation suffered by the area, with its regions and inhabitants abandoned to their fate. The second factor is the poor governance carried out in the territories of the basin, which is directly related to the third factor, the political and security context, which is that in the four regions, owing to the instability, the main aim of the rulers was to protect and maintain their power, for which they used all the resources available, leaving insufficient to attend to the population.   

The combination of these factors has resulted in a very poor population which, furthermore, is seeing global warming unstoppably reducing its only means of subsistence, water. ⁱⁱⁱ However, too many African regions are facing these difficulties without this necessarily leading to a humanitarian crisis of the magnitude of that which exists in the Lake Chad basin. There must surely be one more factor that blows everything up, and this one has a first and a last name, Boko Haram.  

Jama'atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda'awati w'al Jihad (People committed to the propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad) is mainly known as Boko Haram; this terrorist group was formed in 2002 when Mohammed Yusuf, a well-known preacher and proselytizer of the Izala sect of Islam in the Maiduguri region of Nigeria, began to radicalize his discourse in order to reject all secular aspects of Nigerian society. ^iv  

Boko Haram was born as a Sunni Islamist sect with the aim of opposing Western education and establishing an Islamic state in Nigeria. From the beginning of the terrorist group, many subjects travelled from the Lake Chad basin regions to join it, attracted in part by the small loans offered to all its followers, providing the basis for the sect to expand. Boko Haram used Islamic radicalism and the narrative of historical resentment against state abuse from its inception as a means of recruiting new members.   

The group' s ideological basis is not Islam but Islamism, and more specifically Jihadist Salafism, as a perverse and minority derivation of Salafism, ^v which seeks to return to its origins and build a society through Jihad. ^vi At the outset the group was operating widely within Nigeria's borders, but in 2009 all that changed.   

That year the Nigerian forces killed 700 Boko Haram terrorists, including their leader, and it was then that their successor and current leader Abubakar Shekau ^vii decided to make a drastic turnaround in the organisation. With this new leader, the group's violence and extremism experienced an unprecedented escalation, owing partly to collaboration with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Furthermore, the heavy defeat suffered by the Nigerian army and the Multinational Force led them to seek new areas in which to become strong, and this new region was none other than the basin of Lake Chad, the Sambisa forest being its main location. ^viii  

It is obvious that all terrorist groups use fear and violence to achieve their objectives, but in the case of Boko Haram it is particularly frightening, one of its specialities being the kidnapping of children, the former to turn them into soldiers, ^ix the latter to be sexually exploited. Similarly, the most frequent way in which Boko Haram is currently attacking is through suicide attacks.   

In 2016 the terrorist group was weakened, so they decided to swear loyalty to Daesh in order to gain presence and notoriety; however, this proved counter-productive, as shortly afterwards Daesh decided to appoint Abu Musab al-Barnawi, son of the founder of Boko Haram. Abubakar Shekau took this as a betrayal and the group was split up. ^x On the one hand the Shekau faction was renamed Jama'atu Ahl al-Sunnah lil-Dawa wal-Jihad (JAS) and on the other the Barnawi faction was renamed ISWAP (West African Province of the Islamic State).   

This division brought with it a new wave of violence directed at the Chadian basin, causing the regions bathed by the lake to contribute a total of 7,500 soldiers in 2015 to combat terrorist groups and thus feed the MNJTF (Multinational Joint Task Force).   

The MNJTF was created by the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) in 1998. It was promised to receive funds to assist in the fight against terrorism in the area by the African Union (AU), the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and France. Along with financial assistance, they also pledged to provide their military advisers. As well as putting an end to Boko Haram, they also sought to halt arms trafficking in the area and free the huge number of people kidnapped by the terrorist group in recent years.   

However, despite the attempts to eliminate BH in recent years, the countries of the Chadian basin have continued to suffer from its violence. Niger faces terrorist threats on five of its seven borders, the most worrying being the one bordering the lake. The terrorist groups active in Niger include ISIS in the Greater Sahara (ISIS-GS), BH, ISIS-WA and JNIM (a merger between the Sahara branch of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Murabitoun, Ansar al-Dine and the Macina liberation front). Niger has long borders to defend, with little assistance and few defence forces. ^xi   

Cameroon, for its part, is witnessing an increase in terrorist activity in the Far North Region, both by BH and ISIS-WA, year after year. According to an Amnesty International report, ISIS-WA killed 275 people in Cameroon in 2019 alone, not counting the countless abductees. ^xii 

Meanwhile, in Chad, the number of terrorist attacks by BH and ISIS-WA doubled in 2019 compared to the previous year, when suicide attacks with bombs and explosive devices are predominant. In this case, the porosity of their borders makes it very difficult to prevent the entry of weapons or terrorists. ^xiii 

 Finally, the situation in Nigeria is no better; both BH and ISIS-WA continue to carry out attacks against the government and authorities, albeit in retreat. While ISIS-WA has stopped attacking civilians, BH has not ceased its violence against them, and continues to carry out attacks. It is estimated that almost 300,000 have been displaced to the neighbouring countries of the Chad basin, fleeing from the conflict, and will be added to the over two million people who have taken refuge in the states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. ^xiv 

Although it is clear that in recent years there has been an awareness of the reality of Lake Chad and the great humanitarian crisis that exists, thanks to the help of various organisations and bodies, there is no doubt that efforts and intensity need to be increased in order to find a solution to the situation as soon as possible. This geographical area is of great strategic importance and, in addition to Daesh's presence, underlines the tendency of terrorist groups to see Africa as an ideal destination in which to carry out their activities.   

No doubt it has come late, but precisely for this reason special emphasis and attention should be paid to this region, as it may be one of the regions that will mark the future of terrorism, at least in Africa.   

Jairo Sánchez Gómez  

Criminologist and International Terrorism Analyst