The insurgents pressured Zackari to join their movement, and he turned them down.
Now he’s frightened of their revenge. He has been on the run from the jihadi fighters for more than a year. They regularly call the 33-year-old, warning: “We haven’t forgotten about you.”
Groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have been spreading for years from the vast arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert — the Sahel — into wealthier West African coastal states like Benin. Militants once were believed to want to use coastal nations like Benin, Togo and Ghana as bases for attacks on Sahel governments. Now militancy is taking root.
Benin has been the hardest hit. This year it had more than ten times the number of violent incidents involving jihadis than Togo did, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
Attacks by jihadis against civilians in Benin nearly tripled from last year, from more than 30 to approximately 80. The overall number of incidents involving jihadi groups rose by more than 70%.
“There’s full expansion, regular preaching. They’re establishing cells, they have a lot of presence,” said Kars de Bruijne, senior research fellow and head of the Sahel program at the Clingendael Institute.
The jihadis’ activity in Benin is concentrated in the north of the country, where they try to recruit people or get them to be informants, creating division within local populations.
Residents of one small town tucked behind lush hills and windy unpaved roads told The Associated Press last month that civilians can no longer move freely. People in Materi live in constant fear because of the jihadi threat. The fighters are planting explosives and carrying out abductions in the area, instilling fear among the population while eroding state legitimacy. The government has imposed a curfew and a ban on gatherings.
“I can’t sleep at night, we’re not free to travel, to move,” Materi resident Florence Bati said. “People are too afraid.”
Kidnappings by jihadis in Benin surged from zero in 2021 to 33 this year, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, which analyzed the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project data and other sources.