Urgent call to safeguard journalists in Africa's unstable Sahel region

Global media rights watchdog RSF and over 500 local radio stations on Tuesday sounded the alarm on journalists based in Africa's volatile Sahel region, saying they were being killed, kidnapped or silenced.

Reporters Without Borders stressed that community radio stations provided a key bulwark against disinformation in a region where Islamist groups, rebel outfits and armed gangs rule the roost.

"It is important that the Sahel does not become a black hole for information", Sadibou Marong, RSF's sub-Saharan Africa director, told journalists in the Malian capital Bamako.

Community radio stations play a crucial role in informing often remote communities, particularly by providing information in local languages, RSF said.

But they are forced to operate in a deteriorating security context, given the spread of violence from jihadists and other armed groups in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Chad.

Journalists said armed groups pressured them to change program content or simply took them off the airwaves.

"In Chad, community radio journalists are... killed simply because they have covered dormant conflicts between farmers and herders", Marong said.

"Local media outlets and their journalists are paying a heavy price as the region is gripped by instability," RSF's editorial director Anne Bocande said.

Two community radio journalists have been killed in Mali and Chad since November 2023, RSF said, with at least two others kidnapped.

RSF said it had collected the signatures of 547 community radio stations in Sahelian and West African countries for its appeal to protect journalists in the region.

It is calling on the political authorities to systematically open investigations into the murder of journalists and take action to ensure the release of kidnapped reporters.

It is also demanding help to rebuild attacked radio stations, security training for local radio teams, and recognition of their importance in providing information.

RSF warned last April that the Sahel was becoming a "no-news zone", with journalists caught between the violence of armed groups and repression from the authorities.