Efforts by governments across Africa’s Sahel to contain armed insurgencies through civilian militias are facing growing criticism, with analysts warning that inadequate training, limited weapons and abuses against local communities have undermined the strategy.
Military authorities have increasingly relied on self-defence groups to support overstretched national armies. Yet militant organisations, including the Al Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), have continued to gain ground, particularly in Mali.
Recent military setbacks, including a JNIM attack on the Dioura military camp in Mali, have fuelled calls from political and human rights circles for governments to reconsider their dependence on such forces, Erem News reported.
Amr Diallo, a military expert specialising in African affairs, told the outlet that civilian militias lacked the training and organisational foundations needed to confront experienced insurgents.
He cited Mali’s Dan Na Ambassagou militia, newly emerging popular defence committees in Niger and Burkina Faso’s Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland as examples of forces drawn into counterinsurgency campaigns without adequate preparation or equipment.
These groups have been expected to fight opponents experienced in guerrilla warfare, despite lacking the capabilities of professional military units, Diallo said.
The criticism extends beyond battlefield performance. Mohamed Idris, a political analyst specialising in African affairs, argued that reliance on civilian militias was an inadequate response to security crises rooted in complex political and social problems.
He told Erem News that weak military discipline and a sense of impunity among militia members had contributed to abuses against civilians. Such conduct, he said, risked driving local communities and minorities towards the very militant groups the authorities were trying to defeat.
The approach also places additional demands on countries whose national armies already struggle with equipment shortages, Idris said, questioning how governments could adequately arm tens of thousands of additional fighters while ensuring effective state control over them.
The analysts’ assessments point to two central weaknesses in the strategy: civilian forces lack the resources to halt experienced insurgents, while inadequate oversight risks deepening the grievances that armed groups exploit.
As insecurity spreads, the continued expansion of militia forces is raising questions about whether governments are strengthening their defences or compounding the conditions sustaining the conflict.
