Organized Crime and Contemporary Conflict

Sub-Saharan Africa, a vast and rich region of approximately 24,600,322 million km2 that is crossed by some forty countries, has always been the territory of numerous human, commercial, financial and religious flows. This territory presents the characteristic of an area of lasting crisis that overlaps with that of weakened states, although it is of undeniable strategic importance in view of the natural resources it contains. Despite the advantages that the abundance of natural resources gives this region, the fragility of most of the states and regional instability create or maintain conditions of insecurity: galloping demography, states that attract or produce illegal immigrants, the breakdown of legal authorities, widespread corruption at all levels of society, endemic poverty, the persistence of slavery despite its prohibition, and lasting conflict that generates brutal and lasting displacements of populations and illegal migration. As a result, populations are sometimes forced to pledge allegiance to criminal or rebel groups in order to benefit from the benefits of trafficking or to obtain protection.