Covering the multiple crises in the Sahel freely is increasingly difficult for journalists, even more so since the military took power in several countries, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a report published on Monday. The Sahelian strip that crosses the continent from west to east threatens to become “Africa’s largest non-information zone”, says RSF in this grim report.
The expulsion of correspondents from French dailies The world And Release by the junta in Burkina Faso on Saturday further darkened the picture. The RSF report was written before their expulsion. Their expulsion “illustrates how much the Burkinabè junta is following in the footsteps of the Malian junta”, said Sadibou Marong, head of RSF’s bureau for sub-Saharan Africa.
The negative effect of Wagner’s arrival
“We are afraid of a worst-case scenario where they (the leaders of Burkina) prevent any information (from coming out) to the outside (…) but we also trust (in the fact) that it is a country where people resist historically” when it comes to freedom of the press, he said.
The local and international press has been facing a “constant deterioration” of its working conditions for ten years, says the report covering Burkina, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad, but also northern Benin, confronted with similar security challenges.
It describes journalists caught between the violence of jihadists and armed groups on the one hand, and the restrictions, pressures, media suspensions and expulsions of foreign correspondents by the authorities on the other. He evokes the negative effect played by the arrival according to him of the Russian private security company Wagner in Mali.
“Five journalists were murdered, and six others went missing between 2013 and 2023,” the report said. It reports nearly 120 journalists arrested or detained during this period, including 72 in Chad alone. It reports on attacks by jihadists and the disappearance of community radio stations, which were widely listened to, because they did not adhere to their cause.
“Attacks and arbitrary arrests”
Vast expanses have become inaccessible to journalists because they are too dangerous. The sources are “terrified” by the possibility of reprisals from armed groups, but also from the authorities. In Mali, Burkina and Chad, which had barely come to power, the military sought “to control the media through prohibition or restriction measures, even attacks or arbitrary arrests”, according to the report.
RSF recalls the suspension of the French media France 24 and Radio France Internationale (RFI) in Mali and Burkina. The expulsion or forced departure of foreign correspondents for lack of accreditation leaves the field “free to the media favorable to the pro-Russian narrative defending the presence of Wagner’s mercenaries in the region”, which contributes “to the explosion of disinformation “, deplores the NGO.
Deterioration of the financial situation of the media
The pressure exerted on the press in the name of a “patriotic treatment” of information favors “journalism under orders”, and self-censorship on sensitive subjects such as Wagner or the losses inflicted by the jihadists. They also fuel cyberbullying against dissonant voices, says RSF.
RSF also mentions the deterioration in the financial situation of the media, under the effect of the crisis and the end of State subsidies. RSF suggests some glimmers of hope. She mentions the mirror copy of the RFI and France 24 sites that she created to continue to capture them. She cites the creation of different modes of collecting information and partnerships between the media, as well as the development of fact-checking.