The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, announced Thursday April 25 in Abidjan aid to Côte d’Ivoire to fight “against terrorism”help which should be validated next week.
“For Côte d’Ivoire, next week, the member states [de l’Union européenne] should in principle officially validate the mobilization of additional envelopes to enable the acquisition of equipment in order to fight terrorism”declared Mr. Charles Michel after a meeting with the Ivorian President, Alassane Ouattara.
This aid will allow Côte d’Ivoire to purchase “drones, vehicles, equipment to collect information and intelligence”said Mr. Michel, who visited the International Academy for the Fight against Terrorism (AILCT) in Jacqueville, near Abidjan, on Wednesday.
The AILCT has been training and training African soldiers and officers for more than three years, particularly from West Africa, several countries of which are facing jihadist violence. Jihadists have not struck in Côte d’Ivoire since 2021, but this country borders in its northern part Mali and Burkina Faso, where groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are active and which there commit deadly attacks very regularly.
Other countries in the Gulf of Guinea, neighbors of Sahel countries in crisis, are worried about the expansion of the activities of these groups on their territories, Togo and Benin having been repeatedly affected by jihadist attacks.
Charles Michel began a visit to West Africa at the beginning of the week in Senegal which, after Ivory Coast, will take him to Benin.