West and Central Africa

With heightened violent extremist attacks in the region, previously unaffected neighboring states have been heavily impacted. Religiously driven violent extremist groups have also engaged in clashes whilst carrying out numerous deadly attacks against civilians and kidnappings of school children. There are also widespread reports on these groups’ recruitment of children and how they are used to conduct large-scale attacks. Violent extremists continue to exploit political instability and engage in strategic coalitions by adopting affiliate violent extremist groups.