West and Central Africa — Liptako Gourma Crisis Monthly Dashboard 44 (December 2023)

The Central Sahel area, and in particular the Liptako Gourma region, which borders Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, is affected by a complex crisis involving growing competition over dwindling resources; climatic variability; demographic pressure; high levels of poverty; disaffection and a lack of livelihood opportunities; communal tensions; the absence of state institutions and basic services; and violence related to organized crime and non-state armed groups. The crisis has triggered significant displacement of populations in the concerned countries and is affecting neighbouring countries such as Mauritania and the coastal countries.

As of December 2023, 3,011,292 individuals have been displaced, including 2,636,880 internally displaced persons (88% of the displaced population) and 374,412 refugees (12% of the displaced population). Seventy per cent of the displaced populations (2,100,130 individuals) were located in Burkina Faso, while 14 per cent resided in Mali (419,468 individuals), 10 per cent in Niger (287,258 individuals) and 4 per cent in Mauritania (104,324 individuals). The crisis’ recent spill over to coastal countries, namely Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin, shows growing number of refugees coming from the Central Sahel and populations internally displaced. As of December, 100,112 individuals were affected by displacement within the four countries (9,899 in Benin, 36,729 in Côte d’Ivoire, 7,179 in Ghana and 46,305 in Togo) of which 30,372 were internally displaced.