Sahel

The term "Sahel" is borrowed from the Arabic name for the region, '. ' literally means "coast, shore", which has been explained as a figurative reference to the southern edge of the vast Sahara. ==Geography==

in Mali. Note the large baobab amongst the acacia. dogs in the Sahel The Sahel spans from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, in a belt several hundred to a thousand kilometers (c. 600 miles) wide. It covers an area of . Representing a climatic and ecological transition zone with hot semi-desert and steppe conditions, the Sahel region borders the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the dry Sahara desert to the north. This ecoregion is also called the 'Sahelian Acacia savanna' in honour of its most prominent and very drought tolerant genus of tree. The topography of the Sahel is mainly flat; most of the region lies between in elevation. Several isolated plateaus and mountain ranges rise from the Sahel (e.g. Marrah Mountains, Aïr Mountains, Ennedi Plateau), but are designated as separate ecoregions because their flora and fauna are distinct from the surrounding lowlands (e.g. East Saharan woodlands). Annual rainfall varies from around in the north of the Sahel to around in the south. Annual rain levels were measured to fall between 20 and 40% in a span of two decades from 1931 to 1960 and 1968–1990; the levels recovered slightly in the mid-1990s in some areas, especially in central and eastern areas as far as Senegal. The Sahel is characterized by constant, intense heat, with an unvarying temperature. The Sahel rarely experiences cold temperatures. During the hottest period, the average high temperatures are generally between (and even more in the hottest regions), often for more than three months, while the average low temperatures are around . During the "coldest period", the average high temperatures are between and the average low temperatures are between . Everywhere in the Sahel, the average mean temperature is over . The Sahel has a high to very high sunshine duration year-round, between 2,400 hours (about 55% of the daylight hours) and 3,600 hours (more than 80% of the daylight hours). The sunshine duration in the Sahel approaches desert levels, and is comparable to that in the Arabian Desert, for example, even though the Sahel is only a steppe and not a desert. The cloud cover is low to very low. For example, Niamey, Niger has 3,082 hours of bright sunshine; Gao, Mali has near 3,385 hours of sunshine; Timbuktu, Mali has 3,409 sunny hours, and N'Djamena, Chad has 3,205 hours of sunlight. Recent droughts For hundreds of years, the Sahel region has experienced frequent droughts and megadroughts. One megadrought lasted from 1450 to 1700, 250 years. There was a major drought in the Sahel in 1914 caused by annual rains far below average, leading to large-scale famine. From 1951 to 2004, the Sahel experienced some of the most consistent and severe droughts in Africa. The 1960s saw a large increase in rainfall in the region, making the northern drier region more accessible. There was a push, supported by governments, for people to move northwards. When the long drought period from 1968 through 1974 began, grazing quickly became unsustainable and large-scale denuding of the terrain followed. Like the drought in 1914, this led to a large-scale famine, but this time somewhat tempered by international visibility and an outpouring of aid. This catastrophe led to the founding of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. 2010 drought Between June and August 2010, famine struck the Sahel. Niger's crops failed to mature in the heat, 350,000 faced starvation, and 1,200,000 were at risk of famine. In Chad the temperature reached on 22 June in Faya-Largeau, breaking a record set in 1961 at the same location. Niger tied its highest temperature record set in 1998, also on 22 June, at 47.1 °C in Bilma. That record was broken the next day, when Bilma hit . The hottest temperature recorded in Sudan was reached on 25 June, at in Dongola, breaking a record set in 1987. Niger reported on 14 July that diarrhoea, starvation, gastroenteritis, malnutrition and respiratory diseases had sickened or killed many children. The new military junta appealed for international food aid and took serious steps to call on overseas help. On 26 July, the heat reached near-record levels over Chad and Niger, and in northern Niger about 20 people reportedly died of dehydration by 27 July. Desertification and soil loss s at a watering hole in the semi-arid Sahel in Chad The Sahel region faces environmental issues that are contributing to global warming. If the change in climate in the Sahel region "is not slowed-down and desertification possibly reversed through sustainable practices and any form of reforestation, it is only a matter of time before countries like Niger lose their entire landmass to desert due to unchecked unsustainable human practices." Over-farming, over-grazing, over-population of marginal lands, and natural soil erosion have caused serious desertification of the region. This has affected shelter construction, making it necessary to change the used materials. The Woodless Construction project was introduced in Sahel in 1980 by the Development Workshop, achieving since then a high social impact in the region. A major initiative to combat desertification in the Sahel region via reforestation and other interventions is the Great Green Wall. Major dust storms are a frequent occurrence as well. During November 2004, a number of major dust storms hit Chad, originating in the Bodélé Depression. This is a common area for dust storms, occurring on average on 100 days every year. On 23 March 2010, a major sandstorm hit Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and inland Sierra Leone. Another struck in southern Algeria, inland Mauritania, Mali and northern Ivory Coast at the same time. Following the drought period of the 1970s and 1980, however, the Sahel began to experience increased rainfall. This may be due to global warming, which can cause changes that may result in changes in large-scale weather patterns, such as increased stronger monsoons, in turn caused by a warmer Atlantic Ocean. Warming of the Mediterranean Sea may also be a factor. Protected areas Protected areas in the Sahel include Ferlo Nord Wildlife Reserve in Senegal, Sylvo-Pastoral and Partial Faunal Reserve of the Sahel in Burkina Faso, Ansonga-Ménake Faunal Reserve in Mali, Tadres Reserve in Niger, and Waza National Park in Cameroon. ==Culture==

herders in Mali Traditionally, most of the people in the Sahel have been semi-nomads, farming and raising livestock in a system of transhumance. The difference between the dry north with higher levels of soil nutrients and the wetter south with more vegetation is exploited by having the herds graze on high-quality feed in the north during the wet season, and trek several hundred kilometers to the south to graze on more abundant, but less nutritious, feed during the dry period. In Western Sahel, polygamy and child marriage are common. Female genital mutilation is also practiced across the Sahel. Music Blues historians and historians of African-American music, such as Paul Oliver and Samuel Charters, have suggested that the essential elements of the blues originated in the Sahel region of West Africa, brought over by Africans via the slave trade. The African slaves brought to South America and the Caribbean were largely from percussion-based musical cultures in southern, coastal West Africa (like southern Nigeria), as well as Central African and Bantu-speaking parts of Africa, whose musical cultures lacked many elements that would become characteristic of the blues. In contrast, many of the slaves brought to North America were from the Sahel region and much more familiar with stringed instruments; the banjo evolved from Sahelian string instruments such as the akonting. Charters found that many Sahelian slaves were from Muslim cultures, favouring stringed, melodic, and solo melismatic singing, which differed from the drum-based music of other African regions, who generally favoured drumming and group chants. These traditions—which were sometimes permitted by plantation owners who feared drums—became tools of rebellion, evolving into the blues. The historian Sylviane Diouf and ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik identify Islamic music as an influence on blues music. Diouf notes a striking resemblance between the Islamic call to prayer (originating from Bilal ibn Rabah, a famous Abyssinian African Muslim in the early 7th century) and 19th-century field holler music, noting that both have similar lyrics praising God, melody, note changes, "words that seem to quiver and shake" in the vocal chords, dramatic changes in musical scales, and nasal intonation. She attributes the origins of field holler music to African Muslim slaves who accounted for an estimated 30% of African slaves in America. According to Kubik, "the vocal style of many blues singers using melisma, wavy intonation, and so forth is a heritage of that large region of The Western Sahel that had been in contact with the Islamic world via the Maghreb since the seventh and eighth centuries."and so genres descending from the blues have a strong Sahelian influence. In contrast, the more percussion-based Afro-Brazilian music and Afro-Cuban music have more of a southern, coastal West African, Central African, and Bantu influence, where the blue note is absent; this originated from non-Muslim slaves, who generally favoured drums and group chants. The griot tradition of the Sahel also may have influenced talking blues, and by extension, hip hop. ==Language==

French French is spoken widely in the Sahel, as many of its nations are former French colonies, with two adopting French as an official language and many more using it colloquially. The Sahel includes parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan and Eritrea, where French is employed to varying degrees. Colonial History The French language in the Sahel, as in much of Africa, is a remnant of colonial history and a foreign import to a region characterized by linguistic diversity. After establishing French culture in northern Senegal in the mid-19th century, colonial governors like General Louis Faidherbe pushed deeper into the Sahel's interior, facing opposition from regional leaders. Despite resistance, territory was accrued and placed under the control of lieutenant governors who extracted resources and labor from local populations. The greater Sahel was subsequently organized into the massive territory of French West Africa in 1895, noted for its linguistic diversity. Status of the French language French has been the official language of most Sahel countries at various points in their history, but the trend of removing its official status has gained momentum since the end of French military intervention in the region in 2022. Since then, the governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have stripped French from being an official language, punctuating a broader theme of the Sahel's self-isolation from Paris. Although there is evidence of its use in nearly every Sahel country, research suggests that French is more often a Lingua franca of business among the elite and educated classes than a conduit of practical everyday dialogue. West African and Sahel loanwords have entered the lexicon of modern standard French, usually in the context of vernacular or slang elocution. This trend is mostly understood by the wave of African migrants to France since the end of the colonial era, but has intensified since the explosion of the youth population of Africa. Sahel loanwords are challenging the historic rigidity of the French language and its corresponding cultural norms. Linguistic Specificities Code-switching and linguistic blending is extremely common among French speakers in the Sahel, like other regions known for their linguistic diversity. Loanwords and phonetic irregularities derived from local languages have permeated Sahel French: • Overt influence of English and even Chinese words in Burkinabè French, such as enjoy "take pleasure/enjoy" and chao/mao "old." • Ligidi is a Mooré loanword meaning "money." • ''C' nekh comes from the French expression c'est bon but replaces bon with the Wolof word nekh'', meaning "good" or "pleasant." • The phoneme /y/ is pronounced more closely to /i/ by most French locutors in the Western Sahel. • The apical trill pronunciation of /r/, once common in metropolitan France, continues in West Africa despite the more common use of the uvular trill pronunciation by standard French speakers. • Less phonetic variation exists between the vowels /ø/, /ə/, and /e/ among French speakers in Burkina Faso and Niger; /e/ characterizes the majority of these pronunciations. ==History==

Early agriculture Around 4000 BC, the climate of the Sahara and the Sahel started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace. This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink significantly and caused increasing desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and caused migrations of farming communities to the more humid climate of West Africa. Sahelian kingdoms The larger Sahelian kingdoms emerged from 750 AD and erected several large cities in the Niger valley region, including Timbuktu, Gao and Djenné. The kingdom of Alodia also known as Alwa was a Christian Nubian Kingdom in the Eastern Sahel That reached its Zenith from the 9th to 12th century, it was first mention in 569, Its capital Soba located near modern-day Khartoum, Soba was described as a city of "extensive dwellings and churches full of gold and gardens". Due to the forest-savanna mosaic to their south, the Sahelian states were hindered from expanding into the north Akan state of the Bono state and Yoruba peoples, as mounted warriors were all but useless in the forests. In addition, the horses and camels were susceptible to the humidity and diseases of the tropics. Colonial period The Western Sahel fell to France in the late 19th century as part of French West Africa. Chad was added in 1900 as part of French Equatorial Africa. The French territories in the Sahel were decolonised in 1960. The Sahel's easternmost region did not fall to the European powers but to the Khedivate of Egypt when it was conquered by Muhammad Ali in the 1820s. By 1899 it came under British rule until granted independence at Egypt's behest in 1956. Independence ==Instability and violence==

Terrorism According to The Economist, in recent years the Sahel has become the epicenter of terrorist violence, contributing to 35% of all global deaths from terrorism by 2021, with Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, identified as the world's fastest-growing terrorist organization. In 2023, fatalities from conflict in the central Sahel rose by 38%, according to data from the research organization Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. In the wake of the Libyan Crisis beginning in 2011, terrorist organizations operating in the Sahel, including Boko Haram, Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), have greatly exacerbated the violence, extremism and instability of the region. In March 2020, the United States sent a special envoy for the Sahel region to combat the rising violence from terrorist groups. The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need has highlighted the fact that the Sahel has become one of the most dangerous regions in the world for Christians. As of 2024, a wave of new military juntas in Africa, favoring Russian mercenaries over Western forces and UN peacekeepers, has intensified violence. This led Mauritania and Chad to disband the G5 Sahel, an anti-terrorism alliance, after the military regimes in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali withdrew. Human rights issues and political instability On 9 July 2020, the United States raised concerns over growing number of allegations of human rights violations and abuses by state security forces in Sahel. The US response came after Human Rights Watch released documents regarding the same on 1 July. Reports in March 2022 show militants are expanding and spreading out south of the Sahel. Other challenges The violent herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria, Mali, Sudan and other countries in the Sahel region have been exacerbated by climate change, land degradation, and rapid population growth. Droughts and food shortages have been also linked to the Mali War. The Sahel is experiencing more severe weather due to climate change, exemplified by the extreme heatwave of March–April 2024 in Burkina Faso and Mali. This event was intensified by a 1.2 °C global temperature increase from human activities. ==See also==