(Photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Tyler McQuiston via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
On March 4th 2026, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), an Al-Qaeda branch for the Sahel region of Africa, launched an attack on an army base in Northern Benin, killing at least fifteen soldiers. This attack is part of JNIM’s new expansion in the Gulf of Guinea region in West Africa, particularly Benin.
The number of attacks in Northern Benin grew from 22 in 2021 to 176 in 2024, and the number of deaths more than doubled from 52 to 131 between 2022 and 2024. The threat of violence remains concentrated in the northern departments of Alibori and Atacora, with Borgou also exposed to spillover and facilitation risk.
This expansion is significant as Northern Benin presents a strategic geographic area for extremist groups like JNIM. JNIM uses the borders between southeastern Burkina Faso, southwestern Niger, and northern Benin to escape counter-insurgency operations. In addition, Northern Benin offers important economic routes for JNIM, facilitating smuggling and providing important recruitment pools. Here, JNIM exploits local grievances, especially among poorer and marginalized communities, to win sympathy and recruit fighters.
While JNIM’s expansion is a strategic conflict for the Beninese government, the heightened violence has had particularly negative consequences on local populations in Northern Benin. Beyond violence, the conflict has displaced 12,500 Beninese people, which poses important humanitarian risks.
The Rise of Jihadist Groups in the Sahel
The conflict in Northern Benin is rooted in broader conflicts that have unfolded across the Sahel over the last ten years. The Sahel is the geopolitical region that includes ten countries, spanning from Senegal to Sudan. Since the independence of these countries in the 1960’s, many states in the Sahel have faced extreme levels of violence. Economic instabilities, military coups, and multiple international interventions have contributed to making the Sahel a relatively unstable region.
Conflicts have increased drastically over the past several decades. This increase has been driven by multiple fundamentalist Islamist groups, mainly by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), JNIM, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), and Boko Haram. These groups participate in inter-communal conflicts driven by access to resources, organize criminal activities, and clash with State forces and other militant armed groups.
Often labelled ‘terrorist’ by Western media, these organizations are characterized by Salafi-Jihadist ideology, a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that views armed combat (jihad) as a religious and defensive obligation. They seek to overthrow existing secular governments and create a unified transnational Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by sharia law, a body of law derived from religious teachings.
These groups have taken advantage of the political instabilities in the Sahel. Multiple military coups have resulted from these instabilities, with Colonel Assimi Goïta taking over the Malian government in 2020 and similar coups in Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
Other events, particularly the Tuareg self-determination movement of 2012 in Mali, have also permitted the expansion of groups like JNIM. This is highlighted by the recent coordinated attacks across Mali on April 25 carried out by the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and JNIM, which has constituted an unprecedented formal alliance between the two groups.
New Front: the Expansion to Benin
Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have been at the epicentre of a conflict across the Sahel with over 16,000 violent incidents. Violence between state officials and jihadist groups has resulted in nearly 40,000 fatalities across the region since 2017. These attacks have included a raid on the W-Arly-Pendjari national park in April 2025 that killed at least 54 soldiers in Benin, as well as an attack on a Beninese military position in the village of Kofounon, which killed 15 soldiers.
The risk of expansion of these groups into these new countries is not only a security threat, but also presents great risks of further displacements and humanitarian crises. Militant attacks and counter-insurgency operations have driven communities living around the borders to flee their homes. By 2024, Benin had more than 12,500 internationally displaced persons (IDPs) in its Northern territories, an increase of 24% compared to June 2023. IDPs mainly remain with families from the rural border zones, moving towards urban centres such as Malanville in Alibori to seek protection.
(Photo by Jean de Stasio via Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED)
In addition, Benin receives growing numbers of refugees and asylum seekers from neighbouring countries, particularly Burkina Faso. As of January 2025, Benin hosted 16,000 refugees and 7,000 asylum seekers. This is further complicated by the fact that Benin does not have proper state infrastructure for refugee or IDP camps.
Local communities offer critical shelter and support to displaced populations, sharing their limited resources. This puts additional strain on their capacity, increasing the vulnerability of both displaced and host populations. As a result, humanitarian needs continue to grow, particularly for food, shelter, and health.
International Aid Reliance
The increase in humanitarian needs presents a new challenge for the region. The jihadist attacks that have displaced tens of thousands within Benin, in addition to the new influx of refugees from neighbouring countries, have caused severe food and livelihood insecurities. According to the NGO, Solidarités International, global acute malnutrition is estimated to amount to 10% in some municipalities, with more than 276,000 people projected to be food insecure in 2026.
Organizations like UNHCR, UNICEF, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and Solidarités International are increasing emergency operations. Their interventions focus on providing emergency kits, setting up emergency latrines, treating malaria, and installing clean drinking water tanks in affected communes like Ségbana, which hosts around 3000 refugees.
However, the aid remains largely underfunded, limiting the capacities of organizations to deliver assistance. Ongoing conflicts have also made it complicated for aid to reach certain regions. The threat of violence in certain regions, including the risks of kidnappings, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and regular clashes with the Beninese military, restricts aid workers’ safe access to remote zones. It creates an environment where populations both rely on aid and are often incapable of receiving the appropriate help due to rebel groups’ blockades.
Additionally, international humanitarian aid has also been largely critiqued for the paradoxes it carries. Humanitarian aid in the Sahel region has been criticized by organizations like the International Monetary Fund for creating dependency by these states on international donors for their security needs. Heavy reliance on external funding can weaken national institutions and state capabilities in ensuring the humanitarian needs of its own population.
Short-Term Relief is No Solution to Deeper Insecurity
While international aid groups emphasize cooperation and development, when they provide many essential public services, such as healthcare, food distribution, and education, citizens may start relying on international donors rather than their own governments for survival, undermining state objectives and weakening their legitimacy. This can create a dependency on international donors among states and populations, ultimately distracting from addressing the deeper causes of insecurity in the region.
The expansion of JNIM and other jihadist groups from Mali and Burkina Faso to Benin presents a new level of concern for the decades-long Sahel conflict. As Beninese people struggle with their own displacement as well as helping others fleeing from neighbouring countries, solutions to this conflict will require not just short-term aid relief, but long-term strategies aimed at addressing the root causes that are driving the appeal of jihadism within the region.
Edited by Henry Stevens
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