Abu Mohammad has been living in a tent in northern Syria with his family for over 10 years, displaced by the ongoing civil war. Unable to earn enough to support them, he, like hundreds of others, has decided to travel to Niger via Turkey to work as a mercenary.
Abu Mohammad (not his real name), who is 33, and his wife have four young children – they have no running water or toilets and rely on a small solar panel to charge his phone. Their tent is sweltering in summer, freezing in winter and leaks when it rains.
“It has become extremely difficult to find work,” he says, a member of the Turkish-backed opposition forces that have been fighting President Bashar al-Assad for more than a decade.
The faction he works for pays him less than $50 (£40) a month. When Turkish recruiters offered him $1,500 (£1,160) a month to work in Niger, he decided it was the best way to earn more money.
He says Syrian faction leaders are facilitating the process and that after “faction taxes and agents” he still has at least two-thirds of the money left. “And if I die in the battle (in Niger), my family will receive $50,000 (£40,000) in compensation,” he adds.
Violence in West Africa’s Sahel region has worsened in recent years due to conflicts with jihadist groups. Niger, along with neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, have all been affected – and all three countries have seen military coups in recent years, partly due to the instability.
Abu Mohammad is not the only one who wants to go to Niger.
Ali (not his real name), who lives in a tent in rural Idlib, joined the Syrian opposition 10 years ago, when he was 15. He says he also earns less than $50 (£40) a month, which lasts him five days. He has had to borrow money to support his family and sees Niger as the only way to pay off his debts. “I want to leave the military altogether and start my own business,” he says.
And for Raed (not his real name), another 22-year-old opposition fighter, going to Niger feels like the only way to earn enough money to “fulfill my dream of getting married and starting a family”.
More than 1,000 Syrian fighters have travelled to Niger via Turkey since December 2023, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors the conflict in Syria through a network of sources on the ground. They typically sign for six months, but some have now extended the contracts to a year.
The Turkish connection
The official story is that the men will protect Turkish projects and commercial interests in Niger.
Turkey has expanded both its political influence and business activities in the region, selling equipment such as drones to Niger to help it combat militant jihadist groups. It is also involved in mining the country’s natural resources, including gold, uranium and iron ore.
But the recruits know that despite what they are told, the reality upon arrival in Niger could be very different.
The SOHR and friends of mercenaries who have already worked in Niger told the BBC that Syrians have ended up under Russian command and are fighting militant jihadist groups in the border region between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, was ousted a year ago and the junta has since severed ties with the West.
“Niger sought new allies and found a suitable alternative in Russia,” explains Nathaniel Powell, a Sahel researcher at Oxford Analytica. “Russian weapons are cheaper than Western ones. Russia also provides military resources and training, and shows a willingness to adapt to local requirements without imposing strict conditions, unlike its Western counterparts.”
The prospect of fighting under Russian command poses a dilemma for Syrian fighters opposed to the Syrian regime, as Russia is a staunch supporter of President Assad.
“We are mercenaries here and mercenaries there,” says Abu Mohammad, “but I am on a Turkish mission, I will not accept orders from the Russians.”
But he may have no choice, as Raed admits: “I hate these powers, but I have to go for economic reasons,” he says.
They are all still waiting to sign their contracts, which they will do “just before or during the trip,” Raed says. He explains that the process is secret and that he knows a man who was jailed by a Syrian opposition party “for leaking details of the operation in Africa and the registration mechanism.”
The recruits we spoke to claim that their faction leaders told them that a Turkish company called SADAT would take care of them once the contracts were signed and would be involved in arranging their travel and logistics.
About five years ago, Abu Mohamad went to Libya, where he worked as a mercenary for six months. This, he says, was also arranged by SADAT.
The SOHR also claims that SADAT is involved in the process, based on information from other mercenaries who have already been to Niger.
We have not been able to independently verify these claims. We contacted SADAT, which strongly denied recruiting or deploying Syrian fighters in Niger, saying the claims bore “no relation to the truth… we have no activities in Niger.” It also said it had no activities in Libya, apart from a “military sports” project more than a decade ago, which it had to withdraw from because of the crisis there.
The company added that it “does not provide services to non-state actors,” but instead “provides consulting, training and logistics services to armed forces and security services in the field of defense and security, in accordance with the Turkish Commercial Code.”
But private companies are being used by the government in Ankara to recruit Syrian mercenaries and send them to Niger, the SOHR said. The organization’s director, Rami Abdul Rahman, accused the Turkish state of exploiting Syrians with no money and poor economic prospects.
The BBC has submitted these allegations to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, but we have not yet received a response.
This is not the first time that the Turkish government has been accused of sending Syrian fighters abroad. Several reports, including one from the U.S. Department of Defense, have documented the presence of Turkish-backed Syrian fighters in Libya—Turkey previously acknowledged the presence of Syrian fighters but did not admit to recruiting them. It has also denied recruiting and deploying Syrian mercenaries in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in the Caucasus.
Living in Niger
Conditions in Niger mean it can be very difficult to stay in touch with families in Syria. When recruits arrive, their phones are confiscated, according to Abdul Rahman of the SOHR. And Abu Mohammad says his friends in Africa “can contact their families once every two weeks, sometimes less”.
He adds that they are not allowed to speak to their wives or parents themselves and that communication must go through their superiors in Niger, “who reassure the fighters’ families that they are fine”.
Ali adds that some of his friends who traveled to Niger told him they spent most of their time “inside military bases, waiting for orders to fight.”
And not all of them make it home. According to the SOHR, nine people have been killed in Niger since December 2023. The bodies of four of them have been returned to Idlib but have not yet been identified.
Raed and Ali say their families don’t want them to go, so they may be lying and pretending to go to Turkey to train for a few months.
Abu Mohammed’s family isn’t too keen on the idea either. “If I had the means to make a decent living, I wouldn’t do this kind of work even if you offered me a million dollars,” he says, but adds, “if my son asked me for a bicycle, I could never afford it – it’s these things that make me go.”
The names of Abu Mohammad, Ali and Raed have been changed for security reasons.
