Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have opted to lift economic and financial sanctions imposed on Mali, a region led by its military after rulers proposed a 24-month transition to democracy and published a new electoral law.
It was in January when the bloc imposed stiff sanctions on Mali after the region's military government said it would not organize democratic elections the following month as initially planned. During a news conference on Sunday, ECOWAS Commission President Jean Claude Kassi Brou said that the sanctions would be lifted immediately.
Mali Sanctions
However, he added that the heads of state decided to maintain individual sanctions and noted that the suspension of Mali from ECOWAS will be maintained until the return to constitutional rule. The aforementioned individual sanctions targeted members of the ruling military government and the transitional council.
The economic and financial sanctions crippled Mali's economy, raising humanitarian concerns amid widespread suffering. The region has defaulted on more than $300 million of its debt due to the sanctions, which cut it off from the regional financial market and the regional central bank, as per Aljazeera.
Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, the ECOWAS mediator in Mali, visited the country last week. A member of the official's entourage said that the region had made "enormous progress."
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Mali's top diplomat, Abdoulaye Diop said on Friday that the recent political developments were moving the country towards a lifting of the crippling sanctions. Leaders of the ECOWAS had gathered to assess efforts to secure timetables and other guarantees for restoring civilian rule in Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso.
According to KION546, while Mali and Burkina Faso had all of their economic and financial sanctions lifted, the same was done for Guinea. This is because ECOWAS leaders said that they received no acceptable roadmap toward elections.
Violence in the Region
The situation comes after Guinea actually submitted a proposal for a three-year transition to ECOWAS leaders. However, this was rejected and the latter required the former's junta to propose a new timeline by the end of July or face economic sanctions.
The political upheaval in the regions came as many observers started to believe that military power grabs were a thing of the past in West Africa. The region is an increasingly restive one that also faces growing danger from Islamic extremist fighters.
Some regional leaders who spoke at Accra's one-day summit urged action as armed groups continue to expand their footprint in the region. Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said that the terrorist attacks were now focusing on the Sahel and expanding to the coastal states in the region.
The official argued that it was imperative to continue to implement their regional action plan against terrorism and to coordinate various security initiatives. The region also recorded a total of 3,500 deaths from the 1,600 extremist attacks targeting countries, including Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria in the first half of 2022.
Attacks in Burkina Faso were blamed on Islamic extremist fighters continue to be on the rise as gunmen killed at least 55 people in the country's northern Seno province last month, ABC News reported.
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