The $1.2 billion worth of cocaine moving through West Africa has startled the international community, according to the Associated Press.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon briefed a council on the amount of cocaine moving through West Africa every year and the effects its already having on the region, according to the AP.
The Security Council released a presidential statement after the hearing and expressed their "deep concern" in regards to the drug trade which is believed to be increasing links to terrorist groups and drug dealers, the AP reported.
Due to the lack of security at borders, a poorly funded government and the active extremist groups, the West Africa region is susceptible to drug trafficking, according to the AP.
The drugs making their way through West Africa are coming from Latin America and going to Europe, according to the AP. Now, diplomats say the region is producing its own methamphetamine drug.
During the hearing, Ban said the region currently has "more than a million users of illicit drugs," hurting a region affected by poverty where unemployment is at 10 percent, the AP reported.
Yury Fedotov, an executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said the region is seeing a "growing number of HIV infections due to drug injections," the AP reported.
Ban noted the relationship between drug traffickers and extremist groups are "more obvious" than ever, and blamed it on the "weak intergovernmental coordination" in the region, the AP reported.
In the presidential statement, West Africa is urging other countries in the region to pull together and strengthen borders to fight against the trafficking, according to the AP.
Said Djinnit, a U.N. special envoy to the region, said the fight against the drug trafficking can not be won unless help is given.
"Indeed the West African and Sahelian states cannot bear alone the political and financial weight of this fight against criminal organizations, which are sometimes better equipped and resourced than the national institutions mandated to combat them," Djinnit said, according to the AP.
