Terrorism is claiming an average of about 44 lives every day in West Africa and the Sahel, with the growing scale and intensity of violent extremist attacks, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Minister for Foreign Affairs, has revealed. He warned that the frequency and spread of attacks continued to threaten peace, stability and development across the region. Mr Ablakwa said the region now accounted for between 47 and 59 per cent of all recorded global terrorist incidents. Mr Ablakwa said the human cost of terrorism was no longer abstract statistics but a daily reality confronting families and communities across the region. He proposed four guiding principles for renewed cooperation: trust, resource mobilisation from within the continent, integration of security, development, and governance, and foresight through credible, regionally owned early-warning systems.