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Mangan, Fiona and Matthias Nowak. 2019 ‘The Nature of Illicit Arms Trafficking in West Africa and the Sahel.’ The West Africa–Sahel Connection: Mapping Cross-Border Arms Trafficking, pp. 4-5. Geneva: Small Arms Survey, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. 1 December

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Several trafficking routes, both within the region and extending to neighbouring areas, feed regional demand for illicit weapons. Outflows from Qaddafi-era Libyan state stocks have been important sources of illicit weapons for sub-Saharan Africa since 2011. Although these flow have slowed following the resumption of civil conflict in Libya in 2014, they nonetheless remain a significant source of weapons regionally, including new weapons that have since entered Libya in violation of a UN arms embargo. In May and June 2017 it was reported that the Nigerien authorities had apprehended migrants travelling south from Libya with at least 27 handguns. In the same year French regional military forces forming part of Operation Barkhane seized approximately 3,000 cartridges hidden in vehicles close to Arlit in northern Niger. Other crises in other countries have also sparked the diversion of national arms stockpiles. For example, weapons seized in Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria, and central Mali were traced back to Ivorian stocks.

Other known cross-border trafficking hubs and routes include those between:
- Benin and Nigeria;
- Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire;
- Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire;
- Guinea-Bissau and Senegal;
- Gambia and Senegal;
- Liberia and Sierra Leone/Guinea;
- Algeria and Mali;
- Chad and Niger;
- Nigeria and Niger; and
- the Lake Chad region to Niger and Mali

ID: Q14062

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