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The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) sounded the alarm on Friday as a mounting displacement crisis across the central Sahel forced nearly four million people to flee their homes in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
This figure—which includes 818,000 refugees and asylum seekers—more than doubles the population displaced six years ago, prior to a wave of military coups and escalating violence that disrupted the region.
UNHCR Regional Director Abdouraouf Gnon-Konde warned that ongoing militant attacks against civilians, severe climate shocks, and shrinking international donor funding are compounding the humanitarian emergency.
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Nearly 4 million people are displaced across #Burkina Faso, #Mali and #Niger, yet UNHCR’s Sahel response is only 27% funded.
We urgently need greater investment in protection, livelihoods and host communities.
This is the time to scale up, not step back.
https://t.co/ZFe3NvUtNe— Abdouraouf Gnon-Kond (@GnonKond) October 9, 2026
In Mali’s central Bandiagara region near the Burkinabè border, tens of thousands of recent arrivals have pushed refugee numbers nearly equal to the local host population, severely straining local water, land, and healthcare infrastructure.
The agency cautioned that the destabilisation is expanding beyond the central Sahel, driving hundreds of thousands of displaced people into coastal West African states, including Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Togo.
Despite the accelerating strain on public services and asylum systems, international support continues to recede, leaving the UNHCR with only 27 per cent of the funding required to sustain its regional operations.
