PerspectiveHow Weapons Smuggled by Turkish Criminals Are Fueling a Deadly Herder-Farmer Conflict in the Sahel

Published 31 January 2020

A criminal gang operating out of Turkey has fueled one of West Africa’s deadliest conflicts by smuggling in vast amounts of high-powered pump action shotguns, a study by arm control experts has found. The gangsters have smuggled thousands of the weapons into Nigeria, where they have ended up being used in the escalating violence between nomadic herders and settled farmers in the country’s north and central belts. Weapons of the same specification have also turned up in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic.

A criminal gang operating out of Turkey has fueled one of West Africa’s deadliest conflicts by smuggling in vast amounts of high-powered pump action shotguns, a study by arm control experts has found, according to Conflict Armament Research, a British research organization.

Colin Freeman writes in The Telegraph that the gangsters have smuggled thousands of the weapons into Nigeria, where they have ended up being used in the escalating violence between nomadic herders and settled farmers in the country’s north and central belts.

Since 2014, more than 3,600 people have died and more than 300,000 been forced to flee their homes.

Freeman writes

Weapons of the same specification have also turned up in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic, indicating how stockpiles looted by Libyan rebel groups after Gaddafi’s fall have now spread all over the region.

The flood of Libyan weapons across west Africa is widely believed to be a factor in the upsurge in jihadist violence in the Sahel. Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has also blamed it for the escalating death toll between farmers and herders.

The tensions between the farmers and herders run largely along tribal and religious lines, pitting mainly settled Christian farmers against Muslim Fulani herdsmen in competition over land.

In recent years, droughts have driven the herdsmen to move their cattle further south into more fertile land populated by the farmers, sparking tit-for-tat attacks between the two groups in which scores of people have been killed at a time.

While the fighting is more about land and tribal identity than religion, it is feared that Muslim groups like Boko Haram are attempting to exploit it. Many of the weapons used in the conflict thus far are simple home-made guns produced by local blacksmiths.

The pump-action shotguns, which are currently banned for civilian use in Nigeria, are a worrying addition to the conflict, as like Kalashnikovs, they can be used for repeat fire and require little expert marksmanship.