With their fight against terrorists foundering and their economies teetering, the Sahel’s three junta-led nations are putting the squeeze on foreign mining companies to supply more cash for their cause. As the same time, they are offering Russia greater access to mineral wealth in exchange for military aid.
In recent months, Burkina Faso nationalized two mines previously owned by Canadian companies with the expressed intent of running them itself. The takeover happened as Burkina Faso’s gold output continued to slide, having fallen from 67 metric tons in 2021 to 47.7 metric tons by late 2024. The junta has threatened to cancel more foreign mining contracts.
Mali similarly nationalized the Yatela mine, formerly owned by Canadian and South African companies, and arrested the CEO of an Australian mining company. Mali also sent soldiers to confiscate 3 metric tons of gold worth more than $200 million from Canadian mining company Barrick Gold after claiming Barrick owes millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.
The Malian junta rewrote the nation’s mining code in 2023 to give the government up to a 35% stake in all mine operations. Mali expects to receive $1.2 billion from mining companies in the first quarter of 2025.
Also in late 2024, Niger approached Rosatom, a Russian state corporation, about taking over a uranium mining concession previously operated by France’s Orano mining company. Orano owned 63.4% of local mining company Somaïr, but stopped mining operations in late 2024 because it could not export after Benin closed landlocked Niger’s main route to the sea following the 2023 coup.
The actions of the three Sahelian states follow their decision to expel foreign militaries that had been conducting counterterror operations as well as the U.N. mission in Mali. They also reflect a continuing turn toward Russia, whose mercenaries have earned a reputation for brutality against local populations, particularly in Mali.
All three juntas overthrew democratic governments that had struggled to rein in insurgent groups. Junta leaders claimed they would accomplish that task quickly. However, years later, all three countries remain mired in counterterrorism fights with little progress.
Insecurity, coupled with nationalization, has caused the Sahel nations’ mining production to fall even as their neighbors — particularly Ghana and Guinea — have led an overall increase in gold production in West Africa, according to industry publication Mining Technology.
As mining lags in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, all three countries’ national budgets are sagging under the weight of lost revenue. Mining provides 10-15% of the region’s gross domestic product and is each country’s largest export industry. Gold is the largest export for Burkina Faso and Mali; uranium for Niger.
Russia is increasingly providing a lifeline to the Sahel’s juntas by supplying them with mercenaries in exchange for mining rights. That relationship helps Russia circumvent international sanctions in order to finance its ongoing war in Ukraine, according to Kyle Robertson, a researcher with The Washington Institute.
So far, however, Russia’s military engagements in the Sahel have failed to improve the region’s security situation.
“Despite the influx of military equipment and personnel, Russia has proven to be an unreliable security partner, especially due to their extreme but ineffective counterterrorism tactics,” Robertson wrote recently. “Paradoxically, Russia’s inability to improve the counterterrorism threat only deepens the dependence of Sahel militaries on its assistance.”
Russian mercenaries with the Wagner Group, now known as Africa Corps, participated in the massacre of hundreds of civilians in central Mali in 2022 and have used indiscriminate drone attacks and summary executions against local populations. Those heavy-handed tactics appear to be backfiring on the juntas, which have seen deaths from terrorist violence triple in recent years to more than 11,600 in 2023. The Sahelian nations lead the world in terrorism attacks, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
“A gold industry enjoying near record bullion prices is a soft target for a cash-strapped government that’s struggling to keep the power on and needs funds to pay Russian mercenaries that it’s hired to combat an Islamist insurgency,” BNN Bloomberg wrote about Mali.
