AU calls for further efforts to address terrorist threat in region

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU) reiterated Wednesday its “deep concern” over the continuing threat of terrorism in the Sahel-Saharan region, and called on this region’s countries to increase their efforts to address this scourge.
“The African Union reiterated its deep concern over the continuing threat of terrorism in the Sahel-Saharan region, as attested particularly by the recurring incidents in Northern Mali and the attacks committed by Boko Haram in Nigeria,” said a communiqué of AU’s Council released Wednesday in Addis Ababa at the end of the 449th meeting held Monday in the Ethiopian capital city.  
AU’s Council lamented “the increasing scale of the scourge of organized trans-national criminality and its links with terrorism,” and underlined “the difficult situation in Libya, “calling for the mobilization of the region and the continent to support this country to overcome the challenges it faces.
Expressing its determination to fight the armed and terrorist groups in Northern Mali as part of the relevant African and international instruments, the African Union underlined, in this regard, “the opportunity which will be offered by a meeting of the Security and Peace Council Summit, to be held on September 2 in Nairobi (Kenya).”