Four Million People Now Displaced Across Sahel as UN Warns of Deepening Crisis

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - A devastating and relentless wave of violence, compounded by the severe effects of climate change and a crippling lack of basic services, has now forcibly displaced approximately four million people across the central Sahel region of Africa, a staggering figure that represents a two-thirds increase in just the last five years.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued a stark and urgent appeal on Friday, calling for immediate and strengthened international support to address a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis that has seen millions uprooted, thousands of schools and hundreds of health facilities shuttered, and a pervasive threat of gender-based violence and forced recruitment stalking the most vulnerable.

As humanitarian needs in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and their neighboring countries continue to rise sharply, the resources to address them have declined significantly, leaving a massive and dangerous funding gap that is directly impacting critical, life-saving activities and heightening the risks for an already desperate population.

In a detailed briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, a UNHCR spokesperson painted a grim picture of a region teetering on the brink of a full-blown catastrophe.

"About 4 million people are now displaced across Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and neighbouring countries," the spokesperson stated, highlighting the dramatic and rapid escalation of the crisis.

While the majority of these individuals remain displaced within their own national borders, the UNHCR has observed that cross-border movements are becoming more frequent, placing immense and unsustainable pressure on already strained host communities and national systems.

This trend of "onward movements," the agency warned, "highlights the urgent need to expand scant assistance and enable people to remain closer to home, avoiding dangerous journeys" beyond the region.

The primary driver of this mass displacement is a pervasive and brutal insecurity that has engulfed the region, exposing vast populations to a constant threat of violence, forced recruitment by armed groups, severe restrictions on their movement, and the risk of arbitrary detention.

The burden of this crisis is falling disproportionately on the most vulnerable. According to the UNHCR, women and children now represent a staggering 80 percent of the forcibly displaced people in the Sahel.

The agency also raised a critical and pervasive concern about the prevalence of gender-based violence, a threat that is growing in scale. Citing data from the West and Central Africa inter-agency protection monitoring system, the UNHCR noted that "the number of people impacted by such incidents has significantly increased this year."

The crisis has also had a devastating and long-term impact on the region's future generations. The collapse of the educational infrastructure has been catastrophic.

By the middle of 2025, over 14,800 schools had been forced to close across the region, a figure that translates into three million children being left without access to either learning or the safe spaces that schools often provide.

Forcibly displaced youth, stripped of their educational opportunities, are facing a host of increased protection and livelihood challenges, including a heightened risk of forced recruitment into armed groups, human trafficking, and extremely limited access to job opportunities.

This dire lack of prospects, the UNHCR warned, is "increasing the risk of taking dangerous journeys beyond the region" in a desperate search for safety and a viable future.

Parallel to the collapse of the education system, the region's healthcare infrastructure is also in a state of freefall. The UNHCR reported that over 900 health facilities have been forced to close their doors, leaving millions of people without access to even the most critical medical care at a time when they need it most.

Compounding the violence and the collapse of essential services is the growing specter of hunger.

The UNHCR has identified food insecurity as an increasingly significant driver of displacement. According to the agency, the share of displaced people and members of host communities who cite a lack of food as a primary reason for their movement has doubled in recent years. This man-made crisis is being further amplified by the severe and relentless effects of climate change. 

Climate-related shocks are intensifying the already fierce competition over scarce natural resources, such as land and water, creating additional and often violent barriers to peaceful coexistence and social cohesion between the displaced and their host communities.

In the face of this overwhelming crisis, the UNHCR has prioritized a strategy of strengthening protection, inclusion, resilience, and long-term solutions, supporting both states and local communities in their efforts to manage the displacement crisis while fostering stability and self-reliance.

However, these efforts are being severely hampered by two critical and converging challenges: strained humanitarian access and a catastrophic lack of funding. The agency noted with alarm that while humanitarian needs in the Sahel have risen sharply, the resources available have "declined significantly since 2022."

The numbers are stark. For 2025, the UNHCR requires $409.7 million to cover the most urgent humanitarian needs in the Sahel countries.

As of this week, it has only managed to raise 32 percent of that total. This massive funding shortfall is having a direct and devastating impact on the ground, with critical activities such as the registration and documentation of displaced persons, as well as the provision of education, healthcare, and shelter, being "drastically impacted." 

The failure to register and document the displaced is a particularly acute problem. The UNHCR estimates that over 212,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger are not yet registered, a status that severely limits their access to essential services and heightens their risk of arbitrary detention and harassment.

Despite these immense and daunting challenges, the UNHCR was careful to highlight the remarkable resilience and solidarity being demonstrated by communities across the Sahel. The agency's own data from Mali shows that 90 percent of displaced people there feel a strong sense of integration, with local communities generously sharing their own scarce land and resources.

In Burkina Faso, local conflict-resolution mechanisms are proving effective in supporting coexistence between the displaced and host populations. The agency also noted the strong legal frameworks that exist in the region.

All Sahel countries are parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and have adopted national asylum laws that provide a framework for refugee status determination and inclusion, including the right to work and freedom of movement. All have also ratified the Kampala Convention on internal displacement.

However, these local efforts and legal commitments are not enough to stem the tide of this overwhelming crisis. The UNHCR's briefing concluded with a powerful and unequivocal appeal for global action. "UNHCR is calling for a renewed and strengthened international commitment to address the crisis in the central Sahel," the spokesperson declared.

"Countries in the region cannot face these challenges alone. Protecting millions of displaced families and securing a safer future demands more than words; it requires unified, sustained international action and true solidarity with the Sahel."