1. SOUNDBITE (English) David Beasley, World Food Programme Executive Director:
"Because many of the extremists like ISIS (Islamic State group) have been leaving Syria, where are they going? Some are coming to Bangladesh, some are coming to the Philippines, many are going to the greater Sahel region of sub-Sahara Sahara. And that is creating extraordinary difficulties because what they're now doing is coming in an already fragile, a very destabilised area because of climate impact that governance, whatever the case may be, and they're coming in infiltrating, recruiting, using food as a weapon of recruitment to destabilise so they have mass migration into Europe."
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2. SOUNDBITE (English) David Beasley, World Food Programme Executive Director:
"If you (European Leaders) think you had a migration problem with Syria a country of 20 million people infiltrated to some degree by ISIS (Islamic State group) and other extremist groups, now that ISIS has moved down and collaborating with al-Shabab and Boko Haram, al-Qaida, other extremist groups, I said you're talking about the greater Sahel region of 500 million people. So the Syrian crisis could be like a drop in a bucket compared to what's coming your way, and so we must get ahead of the curve and provide stabilisation, use food as a weapon of peace not as a weapon of war, a weapon of stabilisation, not a weapon of recruitment."
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3. SOUNDBITE (English) David Beasley, World Food Programme Executive Director:
"I can tell you mother after mother will tell you that 'My husband did not want to join ISIS or al-Qaida, but we had no food' and if you haven't fed your little girl your little boy in two weeks and the alternative is signing up with ISIS, you sign up, and when we're there, it keeps them from signing up because they don't want to sign up number one. Number two, we want to come in and not just provide food but provide stabilisation, a stronger economy, sustainable development."
The collapse of the Islamic State group's self-described caliphate in Syria and Iraq has led to extremists mounting a recruitment drive in sub-Sahara Africa that threatens to trigger a new European migrant crisis, the head of the United Nations food agency said on Monday.
World Food Programme executive director David Beasley said many of the militants who fled Syria had ended up in the greater Sahel region, a belt of semi-arid land spanning east-west across Africa and home to 500 million people.
Islamic State militants are collaborating with other extremist groups, including al-Qaida, al-Shabab and Boko Haram, to create "extraordinary difficulties" across the Sahel, said Beasley.
He has warned European leaders that they could face a far larger migrant crisis from the Sahel than the Syrian conflict generated if they do not help provide the region with food and stability.
The Sahel, which includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania, is vulnerable to droughts and floods and faces constant food insecurity.
The World Food Programme wants to provide stability, economic growth and sustainable development as well as food to the region, said Beasley, who was in Australia for talks with the government on funding strategies.
