Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated on Sept. 10 that the armed group Islamic State in the Sahel Province (IS Sahel) is escalating attacks on civilians, reporting that since March the group has illegally executed 127 people in western Niger.

HRW documented five armed attacks by the group in Tillabéri region during that time frame. The group killed 70 worshipers at a mosque in a mass execution on June 21. HRW reported that a woman who lost three sons in the massacre said there were "bodies everywhere, one on top of the other."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Sept. 4 warned of a deteriorating rights situation in Mali amid a growing atmosphere of repression. The high commissioner urged the military junta to promptly rescind legal changes that have "slammed the door shut" on a return to democratic rule, and called for the unconditional release of all wrongly detained persons. Türk stated: "The laws enacted in recent months risk undermining respect for human rights in Mali for a protracted period. I urge the transitional authorities to take immediate and concrete steps to revoke the problematic laws."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on July 22 reported that Mali's armed forces and allied Russian mercenaries have carried out numerous "summary executions and enforced disappearances of ethnic Fulani men." HRW documented that, since January, the Malian army and Wagner Group mercenaries have executed "at least a dozen Fulani men and forcibly disappeared at least 81 men" during joint operations targeting Islamist armed groups. The rights group said that the insurgents have focused their recruitment efforts on the Fulani, and that "successive Malian governments have conflated the Fulani community with Islamist fighters, putting them at grave risk."

France officially transferred control of its last military installations in Senegal to local authorities in a ceremony on July 17, bringing to an end the permanent deployment of French troops in the country since Senegal gained independence in 1960. The withdrawal of over 350 troops marks the completion of a process initiated in March, when France began handing over multiple military sites. These have included the Rufisque communications station outside the capital Dakar, turned over on July  1.

Amnesty International on June 13 said that the Nigerian government's pardon for the Ogoni Nine falls "far short of real justice." The rights group published the statement in response to the government's decision two days earlier to posthumously exonerate the Nine.

At least seven have been killed and many more injured in anti-government protests that broke out June 26 in Togo's capital, Lomé. The demonstrations were called over recent constitutional reforms that could cement President Faure Gnassingbé's long hold on power. Gnassingbé, who has ruled since his father's death in 2005, was sworn in last month as president of the Council of Ministers, a powerful new post without term limits, allowing him to be re-elected by Parliament indefinitely. Gnassingbé's family has ruled Togo since 1967, and the new "Hands Off My Constitution" movement denounces the government reform as a "constitutional coup." (AfricaNews, EastleighVoice)

The so-called Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) insurgent group has launched its most successful military campaign to date in northeast Nigeria's Lake Chad Basin region. Throughout May, ISWAP raided a series of supposedly impenetrable army bases, forcing the military's withdrawal and the displacement of civilian communities—some of whom had been recently resettled by the Borno State government following its closure of internally displaced persons camps in the state capital, Maiduguri.

The Court of Justice of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS on May 16 ordered the government of Ghana to pay a collective $75,000 in damages to 30 members of the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) over their prolonged and unlawful detention. The court, based in Lagos, Nigeria, found that Ghanaian authorities violated the applicants' human rights by detaining them for extended periods—some for over a year—without trial or due process. The judges noted that both Ghana's constitution and Article 6 of the African Charter on Human & Peoples' Rights require detainees to be presented in court within 48 hours. The 30 HSGF members were arrested on May 8, 2019, under Ghana's 1976 Prohibited Organizations Decree, which outlaws groups deemed a threat to national security. (Punch)