ACCRA, 16 June, 2021 (TON): On Tuesday, a senior official of ECOWAS said that the escalation of insecurity in West Africa has posed a threat to the sub-regional integration process.

Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, the chairperson of the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) Council of Ministers, made the remarks in her keynote speech at the opening of the 46th ordinary session of the ECOWAS Mediation and Security Council.

While talking about the terrorist attacks in the region, Botchway said, "From the Sahel region through the Lake Chad Basin, attacks from terrorists and violent extremists have morphed with banditry, kidnapping, farmer-herder dynamics and transnational organized crime to leave a trail of death, destruction, despair and fear among our populations."

The recent attacks in Burkina Faso which led to more than 100 deaths among the civilians, including children, is the latest example of this situation, she added.

However, in the end, Botchway warned that the situation in Chad and Mali, which straddles the Lake Chad Basin and the G5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger), could aggravate the insecurity situation facing the region.