State Secretary: Hungary Would Like to Increase Political Presence in the Sahel Region

MTI-Hungary Today 2023.07.13.

Azbej Tristan, State Secretary for the Assistance to Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps Program, in Chad, Africa

Hungary would like to increase its political presence in the countries of the Sahel region of Africa, including the improvement of the stability of the local countries, said the Secretary of State for the Assistance to Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps Program.

A program on M1 news channel discussed Hungary’s support for Chad in the Sahel region of Central Africa, where many refugees have fled after the conflict in Sudan in April.

Azbej Tristan, who himself visited the African country, highlighted that around 5,000 people a day flee Sudan for Chad, a country itself facing significant challenges, including the Boko Haram terrorist organization.

Fact

Boko Haram is an Islamist sectarian movement, founded by Mohammed Yusuf in northeastern Nigeria in 2002, which is also active in Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. Since 2009, it has carried out assassinations and other acts of violence. The movement’s originally declared objectives were to eradicate corruption and injustice in Nigeria and to introduce Sharia, the Islamic law. The group later vowed to avenge the deaths of Yusuf and other group members killed by security forces.

He added that there was a need for long-term stability in the country, which could be promoted by

Hungary’s support for local agriculture and the food industry.

One of the possible areas for this is the cultivation of drought-tolerant crops “based on Hungarian knowledge,” and cooperation could also extend to dairy production, the production of milk powder, animal feed, and meat processing, he noted.

What drives us on one hand is the humanitarian idea of helping people in difficult situations, and on the other hand, Hungarian national interest,”

he emphasized, adding that this interest requires stable countries in the Sahel region.

Tristan said that if Niger and Chad collapsed, it could trigger a wave of migration of up to 100 million people, together with the surrounding countries, with disastrous security implications for Hungary and Europe.

He underlined that while the European Union, by imposing a mandatory migrant quota, is offering a kind of invitation to people from Africa,

Hungary, by contributing to the stabilization of the region and by providing emergency humanitarian aid, is enabling these people to stay in their homeland.

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Via MTI, Featured photo via Facebook/Azbej Tristan