Surge in deaths by African Islamist militant groups

More than 155,000 deaths at the hands of militant Islamist groups have been recorded in Africa over the past decade, according to a new report from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies based in Washington.

The report, highlighted by The North Africa Post on July 31st, underlined a concerning 60% increase in fatalities recorded since 2023, resulting primarily from intensifying insurgencies in the Sahel region and Somalia. Since 2024 alone, 22,307 deaths have been linked to militant Islamist violence, nearly half in the Sahel and a third in Somalia.

The Sahel, the new global centre of terrorism, has seen fatalities rise to rates seven times higher than in 2019, with countries including Burkina Faso and Mali bearing the brunt of this violence. Burkina Faso in fact now controls only 40% of its territory. Mali is also losing ground to Islamist groups, with the Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) groups expanding operations and relying increasingly on drones and IEDs.

Somalia continues to support intense military activity, with al Shabaab and the Islamic State in Somalia collectively responsible for more than 7,000 deaths over the past year. Al Shabaab’s links with Yemen’s Houthis, combined with rising piracy in the Gulf of Aden, have heightened regional instability and disrupted global trade routes.

The Lake Chad Basin has seen battles between Nigerian forces and Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), with military bases being overrun and militant groups expanding into new territories.

Worsening insecurity across the African continent has seen 950,000 square kilometres succumb to non-state control and more than 3.5 million people forcibly displaced. These figures are likely under-estimates due to tight media restrictions and a lack of access to data under strict military regimes.

The North Africa Post, Maghrebi