Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the local, regional and international security threats posed by extremist terrorist groups in (a) Burkina Faso, (b) Mali, (c) Nigeria and (d) Mozambique; and what assistance the UK is providing to tackle those groups.

We are concerned about the security situations in the Sahel (including Burkina Faso and Mali), North East Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad Basin, and in the province of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. Insecurity continues to have a tragic impact on people living in these regions. We regularly discuss issues of insecurity with our counterparts in each region. In January, I met Burkinabe President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré to discuss the security challenges in the Sahel and their impact on the people of Burkina Faso. In March and April I visited Cameroon and Nigeria respectively, where I discussed issues of insecurity with the Foreign Ministers of both countries. Lord Ahmad reaffirmed UK support to help Mozambique fight terrorism when he spoke to the Mozambican Foreign Minister in March, and I also raised Cabo Delgado when I spoke to the Foreign Minister in February.

The UK Government is providing security assistance to regions affected by insecurity. This includes through our recent deployment to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA), our support to the Multinational Joint Task Force, a regional force coordinating military efforts and security in the Lake Chad Basin, and in Mozambique under the framework of a Defence Memorandum of Understanding. We also support those worst affected by conflict through our humanitarian assistance. For example, in North East Nigeria, our lifesaving support will reach more than 1.5 million people over five years (2017-2022).