France and its African partner will work together to wipe out Islamist militants in the volatile Sahel region, French President Emmanuel Macron said at the opening of a summit in Mali's capital Bamako on Sunday.
The meeting of leaders of G5 Sahel bloc – consists of Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad. The African powers launched a new multinational military force in the Sahel on Sunday, which France's President Emmanuel Macron told a regional summit should be fully operational by September.
Islamist militant groups, some with links to al Qaeda, seized control of Mali's desert north in 2012.
While they were driven back a year later by a French-led military intervention, they continue to carry out attacks against on U.N. peacekeepers, Malian soldiers and civilian targets in violence that has spilled across Mali's borders.
The violence has spilled over into neighbouring countries in West Africa’s Sahel region and Paris has deployed thousands of French troops to combat Islamists under a cross-border operation known as Barkhane.
Macron said France and African powers must work together to "eradicate terrorists, thugs and murderers" in the Sahel.
"Every day we must combat terrorists, thugs, murderers whose names and faces we must forget, but whom we must steadfastly and with determination eradicate together," said Macron at the summit in Mali's capital Bamako.
He said the force, which is expected to consist of around 5,000 troops, needed to be fully operational by this September.
With its military headquarters in the northern Mali town of Sevare, the G5 Sahel force will focus on three border zones - one along the frontier between Niger and Mali, another between Mali and Mauritania, and a third straddling the borders between Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali.
