EU Parliament calls for Sahel strategy revision

The human rights situation in the Sahel region is deteriorating fast and could affect the entire Western Sahara region, the European Parliaments Committee on Foreign Affairs said in the draft resolution they voted on Tuesday. The EU should revise its strategy for the region, emphasized the resolution. "Slavery persists across the wider Sahel region with large numbers of people in bonded labour in Mali, Niger and elsewhere," it noted. Child abduction for ransom and sale in Chad and in other countries in the region and the evidence of child labour in Malian gold mines, agriculture, forestry and other sectors of the economy are also topics of concern, said the committee. It also warned that the ongoing conflicts in the Sahel are factors which risk destabilising Western Sahara. "The EU institutions should work together to revise the EU Sahel Strategy soon," recommended the resolution. (