Africa: Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Burkina Faso – a Shared History Collides With Political Fractures

For many decades, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali constituted one of the most integrated spaces of human and economic circulation in West Africa. Beyond simple geographical neighbours, these three former French colonies are linked by intense commercial exchange, ancient cross-border mobilities, and social and family ties.

This interdependence is reflected in Ivorian demography. According to UN estimates, Côte d’Ivoire was home to around 2.56 million international migrants in 2020, around…