AVOID MUSLIM BURKINA FASO

Burkina Faso is religiously diverse society with Islam being the dominant religion. According to recent census (2006) conducted by Government of Burkina Faso, 60.5% of the population adheres to Islam. The vast majority of Muslims in Burkina Faso are Malikite Sunni, deeply influenced with Sufism. The Shi'a branch of Islam also has small presence in the country. A significant number of Sunni Muslims identify with the Tijaniyah Sufi order. The Government also estimated that 23.2% practices Christianity (19.0% being Roman Catholic, 4.2% being Protestant), 15.3% follow Animism i.e., African Traditional Religion, 0.6% have other religions and 0.4% have none. Wikipedia Encyclopedia.

Burkina Faso: Terrorists carry out brutal massacre over three days

In early October, terrorists killed at least 150 people, including many Christians, in northeastern Burkina Faso, revealing their increasing brutality and determination to spread terror in a country where insurgents now control over half of the territory.

On Sunday, 6 October 2024, a new terrorist attack took place in the town of Manni in the East Region of Burkina Faso. Various local sources told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that the death toll exceeded 150. The town is home to a large Catholic community, and many Christians, as well as Muslims, were killed in the massacre.

ACN International
October 16, 2024

The sources told ACN that the terrorists first cut mobile phone networks before attacking the local market, where many people had gathered after Mass. They then opened fire indiscriminately, looted shops and set fire to several buildings, burning some victims alive. The same sources reported that the next day, the perpetrators returned to attack medical staff and kill the many wounded in the city’s hospital. A new incursion took place on Tuesday, 8 October, when the terrorists again invaded the town of Manni, massacring all the men they could find.

Many of the victims were residents from nearby villages who had sought refuge in Manni after being driven out of their homes by terrorists. “The situation is beyond horrific,” one of the local sources told ACN. “But even if the terrorists burned everything, they didn’t burn our faith!”

In a message on 9 October addressed to priests, consecrated persons and laity, Bishop Pierre Claver Malgo, of the Diocese of Fada N’Gourma, described the attack as “barbaric”, and expressed his “sincere compassion for all the bereaved families” insisting that “any threat to the dignity of man and to his life must touch the very heart of the Church”. The bishop also stressed the importance of not losing heart and keeping hope alive “for a better tomorrow”.

The attack in Manni comes amid a continuing deterioration of the security situation in Burkina Faso, where armed extremist groups have intensified their offensives, targeting both security forces and civilians. For several years in a row, Burkina Faso has endured the highest level of extremist violence in the entire Sahel region. At the end of August, the country experienced the worst terrorist attack in its history in Barsalogho. Since then, estimates of those who were killed in the attack have risen to a least 400 dead, according to information gathered by the foundation. Burkina Faso now has more than two million displaced people.

According to ACN sources, who have closely followed the situation in the country, the terrorists are attempting to divide the population, which is otherwise known for its harmony between Muslims and Christians. The Catholic Church is doing everything it can to maintain these good relations.

In response to the escalating violence, ACN has stepped up its emergency aid to Burkina Faso in recent years. Faced with the immense suffering and the significant needs of the Burkinabe population, which have been largely ignored by the international community, several of ACN’s national offices have chosen to dedicate their Christmas campaign to this West African country.


Jihadists from Al-Qaeda-linked terror group kill 600 civilians within hours in Burkina Faso, reveals French security assessment

As per the intelligence agency, terrorists attacked Barsalogho town in Burkina Faso on August 24 and killed over 600 civilians while digging trenches for defence—one of the deadliest single-day attacks in Africa in recent decades.

5 October, 2024
OpIndia

Terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda affiliate gunned down over 600 civilians within hours in August this year, a report by French security assessment recently said, underscoring the menace of Islamic terrorism faced by the poor West African nation.

As per the intelligence agency, terrorists attacked Barsalogho town in Burkina Faso on August 24 and killed over 600 civilians while digging trenches for defence—one of the deadliest single-day attacks in Africa in recent decades.

The military had ordered locals to dig large trenches around the town to protect themselves from jihadists. However, terrorists belonging to Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an Al-Qaeda affiliate terror group, attacked these defences while they were still under construction, accusing the civilians of being combatants due to their involvement in the trench digging, eyewitness cited by the report said.

Videos on social media reveal people lying defenceless in the dirt excavated for the trenches as the militants took their lives. Several victims, including women and children, were killed while attempting to feign death. The videos capture the sounds of their screams mixed with automatic gunfire.

The Al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM is based out of Mali and operates actively in Burkina Faso. It has been involved in several terror attacks across the expanse of West Africa, a region long plagued by the scourge of Islamic terrorism. A series of coups in several West African countries have forced Western nations to flee and allowed the jihadist forces to fill in the vacuum.

The United Nations estimated a death toll of 200 but JNIM released a statement claiming responsibility for the killing of 300 individuals it claimed were militias belonging to the army and not civilians. But the French assessment pegs the fatalities to 600, stating that the jihadists shot dead people.

The report released by French security agencies said, “Large-scale deadly attacks (at least a hundred deaths) against civilian populations or defence and security forces have been occurring for several weeks at a rate that seems unsustainable for the government.”


Suspected jihadists kill hundreds in Burkina Faso attack

By Sofia Christensen
August 27, 2024

DAKAR, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Hundreds were killed in north-central Burkina Faso on Saturday after suspected jihadists opened fire on them as they were digging trenches around a town to protect it from attacks, victims' relatives and a source who spoke to wounded survivors said.

The attack outside the town of Barsalogho is one of the deadliest since groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State moved into Burkina Faso from neighbouring Mali almost a decade ago, plunging the Sahel nation into a security crisis that contributed to two coups in 2022.

The ruling junta has condemned the violence, but did not say how many people were killed.

Hundreds of wounded people were evacuated to healthcare facilities in the city of Kaya, around 40 kilometres (25 miles)south, where a source who did not wish to be named for fear of retribution said the death toll from the attack was likely higher than 500.

Speaking via telephone on Tuesday, the source said Burkina Faso troops had forced reluctant Barsalogho residents to stop their daily activities and dig trenches around the town to deter insurgents.

Hundreds were at work outside when suspected jihadists attacked, the source said, citing the accounts of several injured victims in Kaya.

"All they could do was lie down on top of each other. It was carnage," the source said, adding that gunmen also shot at women who were collecting firewood nearby.

Relatives of Barsalogho residents in the capital Ouagadougou issued a joint statement on Sunday relaying a similar chain of events.

They said at least 400 people had been killed, either on the spot or succumbing to injuries later, and that hundreds more were hospitalised between Kaya and the capital Ouagadougou.

Reuters has not been able to independently verify the estimated death toll.

The statement accused the army of forcing residents to dig the trenches, beating those who feared reprisals for visibly siding with authorities in an area rife with violent insurgent activity.

Junta spokesman Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He headed a delegation of officials that visited hospitalised survivors in Kaya on Sunday and Barsalogho on Monday.

"The government joins you in prayers for the souls of the deceased," Ouedraogo told local media during the trip, saying that jihadists had killed people engaged in "community work."

He lauded health workers, and said the government would cover medical bills and provide humanitarian support.

Civil society have organised blood donations in Kaya, where the diocese declared a day of mourning on Wednesday.

The United States embassy in Ouagadougou on Tuesday said the U.S. "strongly condemns the terrorist attack".

No group has directly claimed responsibility for the bloodshed. Al Qaeda affiliate Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin said it had seized control of suspected army headquarters in Barsalogho on Aug. 24.


‘They live with fear in their stomachs’: increasing violence deepens crisis in Burkina Faso

About 10% of the population is displaced and 40 of the west African country’s cities are cut off from aid – but agencies say they have only 17% of the funding needed to help

July 5, 2024
The Guardian

In a friend’s house in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second-largest city, Maimuona* remembers the night her son was born. “There were gunshots and everyone was running,” she says. Jihadists attacked her village, sending everyone scattering into the bush and causing Maimouna to go into labour early. Seydou was born by the side of a sandy road. His nickname is “the lucky one”.

In the two years since, the family have not been able to return home, displaced by an insurgency that has been simmering since 2014, killing thousands and pushing more than 2 million – almost 10% of the population – from their homes. The situation has been described as the world’s most neglected crisis.

The attackers, believed to be from one of the most active terror groups in the country, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (the Group for the Support for Islam and Muslims), burned houses and shops in Maimuona’s village in Nord region, and killed their goats and cows.

“Do you see the clothes we are wearing? We left with these on, we didn’t have time to grab anything,” says Maimuona, who is now living in the cramped home of her friend in the south-west Hauts-Bassins region, a relatively safe spot in the country, along with her husband, his other wife and their children. One child, Mamourou*, 13, was hit by a motorcycle during the escape. He now walks with a limp because they could not find him medical treatment for the injury.

Fighting broke out in Burkina Faso after an uprising in 2014 ousted president Blaise Compaoré. Compaoré had ruled the country for 27 years and acted as intermediary between the Tuaregs, jihadists and the government of neighbouring Mali during its security crisis in 2012-2013.

Compaoré’s successor, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, was in turn removed from office after a coup in 2022, led by Paul-Henri Damiba. The current president, Ibrahim Traoré, wants to recapture the 40% of the country estimated to be controlled by groups aligned to al-Qaida and Islamic State. At least 90,000 people registered to join the controversial Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland group to fight alongside the army. The volunteers are themselves accused of vigilante activities and of stoking further unrest.

Human Rights Watch has accused all sides of unlawful killings, including the execution of 223 civilians by the army in a single day in February. The government denies the claim and has banned the organisation, along with several media outlets, including the Guardian.

Last year saw an uptick in violence, with more than 8,000 people reported killed, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled), a 137% increase on 2022.

Maimuona’s family is among 256,000 people displaced by fighting from the Nord region. Many have ended up in Hauts-Bassins.

“We used to have a cosmetics, makeup, and a shoe store, but we lost everything,” says Maimuona. She says the family doesn’t have enough money even to buy a sack of rice and relies on the charity of local people. “It’s the goodwill of the people that saves us,” she says.

Food is “the most urgent need right now”, says one humanitarian worker, who declined to be named. All the aid workers the Guardian spoke to requested anonymity for fear of state reprisals. In this, the lean season before October’s harvest, more than 2.7 million Burkinabes face hunger.

More than 6 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN, which has received 17% of the $935m it says it requires this year to meet the west African country’s needs.

“During the first three months of March, we were able to assist at least 731,000 people,” says a worker from another aid agency, adding they had seen a “significant increase” in deaths from hunger.

Aid is not reaching 40 cities blockaded by armed groups in the north and east, home to about 1.2 million people.

People in these areas are living “with fear in their stomachs”, says an aid worker.

The price of basic goods has increased fivefold in the blockaded cities. A litre of gasoline, which costs about 1,000 francs (£1.30) in the capital, Ouagadougou, sells for 7,500 francs. “Health services are paralysed, schools are closed, but there are people who decide to keep living in these cities and risk their lives to bring food,” says the aid worker.

About 80% of the country’s schools have been closed because of the violence, and 818,149 students are not in class, according to the Ministry of National Education, Literacy and the Promotion of National Languages. Between 2022 and 2023, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) documented 270 attacks on educational centres by Islamist militia groups in 10 of Burkina Faso’s 13 regions.

Schools that host displaced people are overwhelmed, and some have built additional outdoor classrooms to accommodate new students. Of the 555 students at one school in the city of Kaya, 500 are from displaced families.

Other pupils continue their education via radio. “Despite the humanitarian challenges faced by the population, the generosity of host communities to support displaced persons and the resilience of affected populations are remarkable,” says a humanitarian source.

Maimuona remains hopefully that “God willing” she and the family will one day be able to return to the village her son has never seen.


More than 2 million people displaced, Burkina Faso's government says, as aid falls short

SAM MEDNICK
June 4, 2023

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group has made Burkina Faso a country with one of the world's fastest-growing populations of internally displaced people, with the number mushrooming by more than 2,000% since 2019, according to government data.

Figures released last month showed more than 2 million people are internally displaced in the West African nation, the majority of them women and children, fueling a dire humanitarian crisis as the conflict pushed people from their homes, off their farms and into congested urban areas or makeshift camps.

Aid groups and the government are scrambling to respond amid a lack of funds and growing needs. One in four people requires aid, and tens of thousands are facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Yet not even half of the $800 million humanitarian response budget requested last year by aid groups was funded, according to the United Nations.

“The spectrum of consequences (for people) is vast but grim at every point. A lot of people might die, and they're dying because they weren’t able to access food and health services, because they weren’t properly protected, and the humanitarian assistance and the government response wasn’t sufficient,” Alexandra Lamarche, a senior fellow at advocacy group Refugees International, said.

The violence has divided a once-peaceful nation, leading to two coups last year. Military leaders vowed to to stem the insecurity, but jihadi attacks have continued and spread since Capt. Ibrahim Traore seized power in September.

The government retains control of less than 50% of the country, largely in rural areas, according to conflict analysts. Al-Qaida and Islamic State-affiliated groups control or threaten large areas, said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Morocco-based think tank.

“State security forces don’t have the resources (human and equipment) to fight both groups at all fronts,” he said.

The jihadis' strategy of blocking towns, preventing people from moving freely and goods from flowing in, has compounded the displacement crisis. Some 800,000 people in more than 20 towns are under siege, say aid groups.

“The situation is very difficult. ... People don’t have food, children don’t have school,” Bibata Sangli, 53, who left the eastern town of Pama in January 2022 just before it came under siege. She still has family there who are unable to leave, Sangli said.

A community leader who last year met Jafar Dicko, the top jihadi in Burkina Faso, said Dicko’s group blockades towns that don’t accept its rules, such as banning alcohol and requiring women to be veiled their faces. The leader spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.

In January, the United Nations began using Chinook heavy-lift helicopters to airlift food to areas inaccessible by road - an extremely costly approach. The three Chinooks were reduced to one in May, making it harder to reach many people as quickly.

While the humanitarian situation deteriorates, so has the ability of aid groups to operate.

Since the military takeovers of Burkina Faso's government began in January 2022, incidents against aid organizations perpetrated by the security forces increased from one in 2021 to 11 last year, according to unpublished data for aid groups seen by The Associated Press. The incidents included workers being arrested, detained and injured.

In November, security forces killed a humanitarian worker with a Burkina Faso aid organization in the Sahel region, the vast expanse below the Sahara Desert, according to a text message sent to an aid worker WhatsApp group seen by the AP.

Rights groups, analysts and civilians say Traore, the junta leader, is only focused on achieving military gains and cares little about human rights, freedom of speech or holding people accountable for indiscriminate killings of individuals suspected of supporting the militants.

Burkina Faso’s security forces killed at least 150 civilians in the north in April, according to local residents from the village of Karma, where most of the violence took place. Prosecutors said they opened an investigation into the killings.

Earlier this year, an AP investigation into a video circulating on social media determined that Burkina Faso’s security forces killed children at a military base in the country's north.

While the government wages war, civilians bear the brunt and are running out of hope.

After jihadis attacked his village in eastern Burkina Faso in April, killing people and stealing cattle, a father of five, who did not want to be identified for security reasons, fled to the region's main town of Fada N’Gourma.

But now his family doesn’t have food or access to health care, and the assistance supplied by humanitarian groups isn't enough, he said.

“Since we’ve been displaced, our situation keeps getting worse,” the 46-year-old man said. “I miss my home.”


Around 60 civilians killed in northern Burkina Faso attack, prosecutor says

April 23, 2023

OUAGADOUGOU, April 23 (Reuters) - Around 60 civilians were killed on Friday in northern Burkina Faso by people wearing the uniforms of the Burkinabe armed forces, local prosecutor Lamine Kabore said on Sunday, citing information from police in the town of Ouahigouya.

He said an investigation had been launched after the attack on the village of Karma in Yatenga province in the borderlands near Mali, an area overrun by Islamist groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State that have carried out repeated attacks for years.

The statement gave no further details on the attack.

Since 2022, attacks by armed groups on civilians have surged while state security forces and volunteer defence troops have conducted a number of abusive counter-terrorism operations, Human Rights Watch said in March.

Unidentified assailants killed 40 people and wounded 33 others in an attack on the army and volunteer forces in the same region of northern Burkina Faso near Ouahigouya on April 15, according to the government.

Unrest in the region began in Mali in 2012, when Islamists hijacked a Tuareg separatist uprising. The violence has since spread into Burkina Faso and Niger, killing thousands and displacing over 2.5 million people.


Nearly 70 troops killed in two jihadist attacks in troubled Burkina

21/02/2023

Ouagadougou (AFP) – Suspected jihadists killed at least 15 soldiers in troubled northern Burkina Faso, just three days after an ambush that claimed the lives of 51 troops, security sources said Tuesday.

A unit in Tin-Akoff in Oudalan province near the border with Mali "came under violent attack" on Monday evening, a source said, giving a toll of "about 15 dead" with others still missing.

The army mounted a counter-attack with air support, "neutralising... dozens of terrorists," the source added.

A second source in the security forces confirmed the assault and put the toll at 19 soldiers dead and "dozens of missing."

The bloodshed came as the Sahel nation reeled from a deadly ambush last Friday near Deou, also in Oudalan province.
Fifty-one soldiers died and 160 jihadists were killed in that action and the aftermath, according to army figures.

Jihadist insurgents in Mali began launching cross-border incursions on the landlocked Sahel state more than seven years ago.

Since then, than 10,000 civilians, police and troops have died, according to NGO estimates, and more than two million people have fled their homes.

Around 40 percent of the nation's territory lies outside the government's control.

Anger within the military at failures to turn the tide sparked two coups last year.

Hours before news broke of the latest attack, political parties and civil groups displayed their support for the ruling junta.

"In these difficult times, I urge the Burkinabe people to cultivate a spirit of national unity and support the transitional authorities in their resolve to restore our territorial integrity," said Zephirin Diabre of the Union for Progress and Change (UPC).

Junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore acknowledged the fight against jihadism was "strewn with pitfalls" but said the authorities remained "determined" to triumph.

Friday's attack was the deadliest among the security forces since Traore, 34, took power in late September, vowing to recover territory captured by the jihadists.

But attacks have escalated sharply in recent weeks -- since the start of the year, more than 200 people have died, according to an AFP toll.

Political commentator Harouna Traore asked why the armed forces seemed to be so vulnerable.

"Why are patrols being carried out without aerial surveillance? Today, we have drones, reconnaissance aircraft, which should mean we no longer run into ambushes," he said.

Burkina Faso's junta, like its counterpart in Mali, has fallen out with France, the country's traditional ally.

France is pulling out its troops -- a special forces unit of around 400 men based near the capital Ouagadougou.


People Starve In Burkina Faso Town Under Jihadist Blockade

By AFP - Agence France Presse
November 17, 2022

Jihadists have dynamited bridges and mounted deadly attacks against supply convoys, blockading Burkina Faso's northern town of Djibo and leaving its people destitute.

"The situation is catastrophic in Djibo," said Idrissa Badini, a spokesman for a group of civil society organisations in the wider Soum province.

"Hunger is at such a level that it is starting to kill children and the elderly."

Last month alone, 15 people died of hunger in the town, he said. But there were "probably more victims", as other cases had likely gone unreported.

According to the United Nations, dozens of places in Burkina Faso face conditions similar to those in Djibo.

Nearly a million people are living in besieged areas in the north and east of the country.

Burkina Faso has been struggling with a jihadist insurgency since 2015.

Over the last few years, Djibo has become a hub for the region's internally displaced people, forced to flee violence involving groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State organisation.

The town's population has tripled to an estimated 300,000.

But the blockade is now pushing some of those displaced to flee a second time, southwards to the capital Ouagadougou.

"Deprived of water, food, medicine and phone signal, many are leaving Djibo on foot, at night, in the hope of reaching areas they can still reach," an aid worker told AFP on condition of anonymity.

On the road between Djibo and the town of Bourzanga, residents described seeing the wreckage of vehicles hit by landmines.

Several supply convoys have recently been attacked on the road.

In September, 35 people died when their truck was blown up by a mine. There were children among the dead.

Another attack on a convoy killed 11 soldiers.

The convoys are a lifeline -- with farmers unable to tend to their fields amid the fighting, food production is almost non-existent in many parts of Burkina Faso.

"There's nothing to eat, nothing to sell. Whether you're poor or rich, you can't buy anything," said Souleymane Dicko, a Djibo resident who had escaped to the capital Ouagadougou.

"The worst thing is we're in the dry season -- the leaves and herbs we used to pull up and boil aren't even available anymore."

Disgruntled army officers have carried out two coups in Burkina Faso this year in a show of anger at failures to roll back the insurgency.

Earlier this month, Captain Ibrahim Traore, who seized power in a coup in September, went to Djibo on his first official visit.

"Go and see the children who have skin on their bones, the old people who are dying of hunger, the women who can no longer breastfeed because they have nothing left in their breasts," Traore said.

"Let's not pretend. There are people who eat leaves to survive."

He described a "worrying situation", saying "the territory is almost lost".

In Arbinda, a town to the east of Djibo, tens of thousands of people from surrounding areas have gathered fleeing attacks.

"The regular land convoys that used to supply the population with food and subsistence products have stopped," said Badini.

"For the past two months, nothing has reached Arbinda. The population, which has used up its reserves, is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster."

In some cases, some supplies have been able to get through to areas in need despite the attacks.

At the end of last month, the army airlifted 70 tonnes of grain to Djibo, and trucks ferried in more than 300 tonnes of food to the town at the start of this month, the army general staff says.

Seven mines were defused on the way.

"We have been able to supply some villages but not others yet," Traore said.

The World Food Programme says around 3.5 million people in Burkina Faso will need emergency food aid in the coming months.


Al-Qaida Branch Claims Attack on Burkina Faso Convoy; Dozens Killed

October 04, 2022
Reuters

OUAGADOUGOU —
The Sahel-based branch of al-Qaida, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), has claimed an attack on a convoy in Burkina Faso that killed more than a dozen soldiers last month, the SITE Intelligence Group said Tuesday.

Islamist militants attacked a convoy taking supplies to a town in northern Burkina Faso on September 26, days before the West African country was hit by its second military takeover this year.

JNIM claimed credit for the ambush and said it "caused significant economic losses to the enemy and 'led to a shakeup' in the Burkinabe army ranks, culminating in the military coup," the SITE statement said.

Eleven soldiers were found dead and about 50 civilians were reported missing after the attack, the previous government said.

But an internal security document seen by Reuters on Tuesday gave a death toll of 27 soldiers.


Capt Ibrahim Traoré: Burkina Faso's new military ruler

October 3, 2022
BBC News

Said to have been a shy but intelligent boy in school, Burkina Faso's Capt Ibrahim Traoré has become the latest military officer to seize power in a coup in one of France's former colonies in West Africa.

He overthrew his former comrade, Lt Col Paul-Henri Damiba on 30 September, after accusing him of failing to fulfil his promise of quelling the Islamist insurgency that has gripped Burkina Faso since 2015.

Born in 1988, this makes the 34-year-old captain the youngest head of state in Africa, joining the ranks of two other coup leaders - Guinea's charismatic Col Mamady Doumbouya, born in 1981, and Mali's bearded Col Assimi Goïta, born in 1983.

"I know I'm younger than most of you here. We didn't want what happened but we didn't have a choice," Capt Traoré told government officials.

During Lt-Col Damiba's short time in power, attacks by militant Islamists - some of them linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda - increased in Burkina Faso as they seized territory in rural areas and encircled cities, leaving the state in control of only about 60% of the country, according to some estimates.

With a lack of strong democratic institutions in a country where the military has long been dominant, Capt Traoré seized power with a pledge to improve security in a nation living in fear of the militants.

His coup - the second in Burkina Faso in less than nine months - is the latest sign of the epidemic of coups that UN chief António Guterres raised concern about in 2021.

"My appeal, obviously, is for - especially the big powers - to come together for the unity of the Security Council in order to make sure that there is effective deterrence in relation to this epidemic of coup d'états," Mr Guterres said at the time.

But with global powers focused either on domestic crises - or the war in Ukraine - they have paid little attention to the instability that has wracked countries such as Burkina Faso.

If anything, Burkina Faso and some other countries have found themselves increasingly embroiled in the cold war rivalry that has been reignited by the Ukraine conflict, as Russia seeks to expands its influence in the region at the expense of France, which has retained close economic, military and cultural ties to many of its former colonies in Africa.

"I know that France cannot interfere directly in our affairs," Capt Traoré said, adding: "The Americans are our partners now, [but] we can also have Russia as a partner."

His comments suggest that he could follow the example of his counterpart in Mali, who has allegedly brought in the controversial Russian security group, Wagner, to replace the French in the fight against jihadists, albeit with little success, as the insurgency has worsened there too since the military staged a coup in August 2020.

Capt Traoré cut his teeth fighting the jihadists in Mali. He served in a UN force there, and reportedly "showed bravery" in the face of a "complex attack" by militants in the northern Timbuktu region - famous for its centuries-old buildings - in 2018.

The following year, he participated in a military operation codenamed Otapuanu in Burkina Faso's restive east for seven months. He also served in a detachment of Markoye in the northern Sahel region and took part in several operations there.

"Traore is close to his men, wilful and courageous. He could not do six months without going to a detachment," an unnamed source was quoted as saying on Burkina Faso's Radio Omega.

But Capt Traoré is no decorated war general, only a captain who studied at a local military academy, joined the army in 2009 and received artillery training in Morocco.

He chose a military career after completing his schooling in Burkina Faso's second city, Bobo-Dioulasso, with reports describing him as "shy and rather reserved" but also "very intelligent".

Now, Capt Traoré has found himself at the centre of international glare, with some going as far as drawing parallels between him and Burkina Faso's famous revolutionary, Thomas Sankara - not surprising in a nation looking for political saviours after decades of misrule.

"Ibrahim Traoré has taken over the leadership of the country, like a certain Thomas Sankara, [and] like him after a military coup, captain like him, 34 years old like him. Is this a twist of fate for a Burkina in search of new landmarks?" the privately-owned Wakat Sera website asked.


At Least 35 Killed in Jihadist Roadside Bomb Attack

09/06/2022 Burkina Faso (International Christian Concern) – ICC has previously reported on the rise of jihadism in Burkina Faso that has led to an increase in violent attacks by Islamic extremists. Many roads in the northern parts of the country are now completely controlled by militants and convoys escorted by soldiers are often the only safe way to travel between towns. 

On Monday, a bomb hit a convoy of vehicles in the northern region, killing at least 35 people and wounding dozens more. The convoy was escorted by the military and was traveling between Bourzanga and Djibo towns. One of the vehicles was carrying civilians. 

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but local authorities attribute it to the radicalized Islamic rebels who are besieging the area. 

This is the fifth explosion in the province since August, according to an internal security report for aid workers that was seen by The Associated Press. Last month, a double explosion in the same area killed 15 people. 

Amidst the jihadist violence the region continues to experience, church leaders have shared their thoughts on the situation.

“The security situation in the country is getting worse every day, armed groups are advancing, there are attacks against the army, and the population is subject to its will” said Fr. Etienne Tandamba, a priest of the diocese of Fada N’Gourma, in an interview late last year with RECOWA-CERAO, the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa.

Father Tandamba said that “the Church is resilient” and “continues to pray and find ways and means to announce the good news and care for Christian communities.”

“We continue to make great sacrifices to help the poor and needy, especially the internally displaced,” he said, adding that through radio and other forms of communication, the Church seeks to bring about “social cohesion and religious tolerance as well as dialogue.”

Please pray for the church in Burkina Faso as the country struggles with ongoing violence.


34 Killed In Two Jihadist Attacks In Burkina Faso

By AFP - Agence France Presse
July 4, 2022

Suspected jihadists killed at least 34 people in attacks on villages in northern Burkina Faso at the weekend, officials and sources said Monday.

In the northwest of the country, 22 people, reportedly including children, were killed late Sunday at Bourasso in Kossi province, said Boucle du Mouhoun regional governor Babo Pierre Bassinga.

"Armed men moved around the village at around 5:00 pm, firing in the air. They came back at night and blindly opened fire on people," a security source said.

In northern Burkina Faso, 12 people died on Saturday in an attack at Namissiguima in Yatenga province, another security source said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

Three of the dead were members of a civilian militia, the Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland (VDP) -- an auxiliary force set up in December 2019 to support the army.

Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world, has been grappling with a jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

The campaign, led mainly by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, has claimed thousands of lives and forced some 1.9 million people to flee their homes.

More than 40 percent of the country lies outside the control of the government, according to official figures.

Burkina Faso underwent a coup in January, when disgruntled colonels ousted elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

The new strongman, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, declared security to be his top priority but after a relative lull, attacks resumed, with the loss of hundreds of lives.


55 People Killed in Suspected Islamic Extremist Attack in Burkina Faso

06-13-2022
Associated Press

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) - Gunmen killed at least 55 people over the weekend in northern Burkina Faso, authorities said Monday, the latest attack in the West African country seeing mounting violence blamed on Islamic extremists.

Suspected militants targeted civilians in Seytenga in Seno province, government spokesman Wendkouni Joel Lionel Bilgo said at a news conference. While the government put the official toll at 55, others put the figure far higher.
Attacks linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are soaring in Burkina Faso, particularly in the north. Jihadists killed at least 160 people in an attack in Solhan town last July.

In January, mutinous soldiers ousted the democratically elected president promising to secure the nation but violence has only increased. The government is asking people to remain united in the fight against the insurgents.

While no group claimed the attack, conflict analysts say it was likely carried out by the Islamic State group.

“In recent weeks the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) have been the most aggressive group, notably in Seno and Oudalan provinces. In addition to attacks against security forces, civilians have also been targeted,” said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan-based organization focused on economics and policy.

“This is a major blow to security forces and puts them on the backfoot again, indicating they are far from being able to secure the area and protect civilians,” he said.

Nearly 5,000 people have died over the last two years in Burkina Faso because of violence blamed on Islamic extremists. Another 2 million people have fled their homes, deepening the country's humanitarian crisis.


Suspected jihadists kill dozens in eastern Burkina Faso

(AFP)
May 26, 2022

Suspected jihadists killed around 50 civilians in Burkina Faso, the Eastern region's governor said Thursday, in the latest attack in the impoverished Sahel nation.

The civilians from Madjoari died on Wednesday trying to flee a jihadist blockade, said Colonel Hubert Yameogo in a statement, adding that the toll was provisional.

Survivors told AFP by telephone they had been trying to get away from the attackers as food ran out.

"The people were intercepted and executed by the terrorists," one survivor said. "All the dead were men."

The governor of the region said: "Security operations are underway to restore peace".

One of the world's poorest countries, Burkina Faso has been shaken by jihadist raids since 2015, with the movements linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

More than 2,000 people have been killed and 1.8 million displaced.

Last Sunday suspected jihadists killed 11 people in two villages in northern Burkina.

And last Thursday, 11 soldiers and 15 gunmen died in another attack, in the east, the army said.

In January mutinous troops, angered at mounting losses, ousted elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba took charge making the security crisis his priority.

But after a relative lull in violence, a surge in attacks has claimed well over 200 lives among civilians and security forces.


Death Toll From Burkina Faso Attack Rises to 53

VOICE OF AMERICA
November 18, 2021

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO —
The death toll from Sunday’s attack by militants on Burkina Faso military police has risen to 53. The attack is the deadliest on security forces during Burkina Faso’s six-year-long battle with Islamist militants.

Burkina Faso’s communications minister said Thursday that 49 military police and four civilians were killed in the attack on a military police base in the north.

A security source told VOA Thursday morning that the death toll is likely to rise further.

The attack was the deadliest for the country’s security forces since the battle between the government and armed groups linked to Islamic State, al-Qaida and local bandits began six years ago.

The event has caused a public outcry and small protests, with about 300 people taking to the streets of Ouagadougou on Tuesday.

Adama Tiendrebeogo was among the protesters.

“Politically, we say that President [Roch] Kabore has failed in his responsibilities. He took an oath to protect the Burkinabé people who he has failed, so we think he has to leave,” he said.

Asked what the mood was among those who had joined the protest, he said that people think it’s a pity that for six years the country has been at war, and that we are still fighting.

“So, there are no solutions, there is no hope, no prospects, the Burkinabé people feel abandoned by their captain,” Tiendrebeogo added.

The minister of communication did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.

Meanwhile, the opposition has called for president Kabore, to resign.

A statement by Eddie Kombiego, leader of the opposition CDP party, on Tuesday said, “This situation arose because of the notorious incompetence of the Kabore regime.”

The government is keen to be seen as taking action. During a Cabinet meeting yesterday, the president sought to blame shortcomings in the military police for the attack.

Two security personnel responsible for the northern area of the country, where the attack took place, were subsequently removed from their posts on Wednesday.

The president also suggested that food supply issues in the military were a problem and needed to be dealt with.

An unverified document, which appeared to have been leaked from the military, circulated on social media earlier this week. It showed the base in Inata, where the attack happened, had been suffering from food supply issues for two weeks.

Personnel from the base were said to have been forced to slaughter local animals for food.

Andrew Lebovich, an analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations, says the Islamist threat is a huge challenge.

“On the security front, I think this shows how difficult it is and how much trouble the government has had, even in the face of ongoing security operations, to confront and to deal with the militant threat, particularly near the borders with Mali and Niger.… It really is, any place, a quite dire security situation,” Lebovich said.
More protests are expected to take place next week.

Burkina Faso Sees More Child Soldiers as Jihadi Attacks Rise 

By Associated Press

August 01, 2021 

DORI, BURKINA FASO - Awoken by gunshots in the middle of the night, Fatima Amadou was shocked by what she saw among the attackers: children.

Guns slung over their small frames, the children chanted “Allahu akbar,” as they surrounded her home in Solhan town in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region. Some were so young they couldn’t even pronounce the words, Arabic for “God is great,” said the 43-year-old mother.

“When I saw the kids, what came to my mind was that (the adults) trained these kids to be assassins, and they came to kill my children,” Amadou told The Associated Press by phone from Sebba town, where she now lives.

She and her family are among the lucky ones who survived the June attack, in which about 160 people were killed — the deadliest such assault since the once-peaceful West African nation was overrun by fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State about five years ago. As that violence increases, so too does the recruitment of child soldiers.

The number of children recruited by armed groups in Burkina Faso rose at least five-fold so far this year, up from four documented cases in all of last year, according to information seen by the AP in an unpublished report by international aid and conflict experts.

At least 14 boys are being held in the capital, Ouagadougou, for alleged association with militant armed groups, some there since 2018, said Idrissa Sako, assistant to Burkina Faso’s public prosecutor at the high court in the city.

Amadou said she saw about seven children with the fighters who surrounded her home during the Solhan attack. She did not see them kill anyone, but they helped burn down houses.

“We are alarmed by the presence of children with armed groups,” said Sandra Lattouf, the representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, in the country.

The effects of the conflict on children — including their recruitment as soldiers but also attacks on schools and kids themselves — have become so concerning that this year Burkina Faso was added for the first time to the U.N.’s annual report on Children and Armed Conflict.

Aid groups say they are seeing more children with jihadi fighters at roadside checkpoints in the Sahel — an arid region that passes through Burkina Faso but stretches straight across the African continent just south of the Sahara. In recent years, the western Sahel has become an epicenter of jihadi violence.

During a recent trip to Dori, a town in the region where nearly 1,200 people fled after the attack on Solhan, the AP spoke with eight survivors, five of whom said they either heard or saw children partake in the violence.

“We heard them say, ‘we good children have come to change Solhan in a better way,’” said Hama Amadou, a resident, who hid in his shop during the fighting. He said he also heard women directing the children, saying “kill him, kill him.”

Burkina Faso’s ill-equipped and undertrained army is struggling to stem the violence, which has killed thousands and displaced 1.3 million people since the jihadi attacks began.

Experts on child recruitment say that poverty pushes some kids toward armed groups. Sako, who works with the public prosecutor, said some children who wanted money to enroll in school joined because they were promised approximately $18 if they killed someone. Others were promised gifts like motorbikes.

But civil society organizations also accuse army troops of contributing to the problem by committing abuses against civilians suspected of being jihadis.

“There are more security operations ... (so) there are more military abuses,” said Maimouna Ba, head of operations for Women for the Dignity of the Sahel, a Dori-based advocacy group. “It is hard for a child to get up in the morning and see that their father was killed.” As they get older, children may become angry and start asking why the state isn’t helping them, she said.

The army denied these allegations, along with accusations that it was slow in responding to the attack in Solhan, but would not provide a detailed comment. 

The deteriorating security is sparking unrest, with protests across the country demanding the government take stronger action. In response, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore fired his security and defense ministers, appointing himself minister of defense.

Amid this raft of problems, Burkina Faso must now also figure out what to do with the children accused of being affiliated with armed groups.

None of the boys being held in Ouagadougou has been put on trial, according to Sako. The government has not yet signed an agreement with the United Nations that would help it to treat such children as victims, not perpetrators, for instance, by moving them from prison to centers where they could receive psychological care.

“It is a real concern for us to find a permanent solution for children,” said Sako.

Preventing further recruitment, meanwhile, means tackling economic hardship and all that comes with it, including helping kids who have left school to catch up on their lessons.

“Neglecting to act now will only lead to a more intractable crisis and greater instability in the months and years ahead, giving these armed groups the heartbreaking advantage they are so violently seeking,” said Dr. Samantha Nutt, founder and president of War Child Canada and War Child USA.

For now, many parents, already struggling to feed, clothe and educate their kids, feel powerless to protect them. 

“I’m really afraid for my child to be recruited by jihadis,” said Isma Heella, a Dori resident and father to a 4-year-old boy. “We fear for our children and for ourselves as parents because we are not stronger than them.”

UN says armed attacks in Burkina Faso displace over 17,500 in past 10 days

Reuters

May 7, 2021

More than 17,500 people in Burkina Faso have been forcefully displaced from their homes in the past 10 days due to a series of attacks by unidentified armed groups that have killed 45 people, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Friday.

Attacks by jihadist armed groups linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State in the West African Sahel region have been rising sharply since the start of the year, particularly in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, with civilians bearing the brunt.

The UNHCR report said gunmen had carried out a series of attacks in three separate regions, burning down houses and shooting civilians dead. The assailants also ransacked health centres and damaged homes and shops.

"Clearly one of the reasons is to cause mayhem and to torment civilians," UNHCR spokesman Boris Cheshirkov told a briefing in Geneva.

The security situation in the Sahel region is fuelling one of the fastest growing displacement crises in the world, he said.

Security sources told Reuters on Monday that armed assailants had killed around 30 people in an attack on a village in eastern Burkina Faso. read more 

Last week, two Spanish journalists and an Irish citizen were killed in an armed ambush by suspected militants during an anti-poaching patrol near a nature reserve in eastern Burkina Faso. read more 

"The trends we see only point to more violence to come," Cheshirkov said.

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The violence in Burkina Faso has displaced more than 1.14 million people in just over two years, while the poor arid country is also hosting some 20,000 refugees from neighbouring Mali who are seeking safety from jihadi violence.

Burkina Faso: 58 killed in attacks targeting Christians

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor

SUNDAY, JUNE 07, 2020 

At least 58 people, including children, were recently killed in northern Burkina Faso in three separate attacks by armed Islamic militants who were targeting Christians. 

Christians were among those targeted and killed in the attacks that took place in the provinces of Loroum, Kompienga and Sanmatenga within 24 hours, from May 29 to May 30, according to the U.K.-based aid agency Barnabus Fund.

The group said a local source spoke to a survivor, who said the militants targeted Christians and humanitarians taking food to a camp of internally displaced people with many Christian villagers who had fled before the violence.

Referring to an attack on a humanitarian convoy in Sanmatenga province’s Barsalogho area, which left six civilians and seven soldiers dead, the survivor said, “The driver shouted ‘forgive, forgive, we are also followers of the [Islamic] prophet Muhammad.’ One of them [among the gunmen] turned to the other attackers and said, ‘they have the same religion with us.’”

The attack subsequently ended, the charity said.

Apart from the attack in Sanmatenga, militants opened fire indiscriminately at a cattle market in Kompienga on May 30, killing at least 30 people. The day before, a convoy of traders, which included children, was attacked while traveling from Titao to Sollé in Loroum province.

Dozens were injured in the three attacks.

Last December, at least 14 people were killed when gunmen stormed a Protestant church service in the town of Hantoukoura near the border with Niger. Last April, gunmen killed a Protestant pastor and five other Christians who were leaving a worship service in Silgadji.

Burkina Faso, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, has been fighting armed groups with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State for more than four years.

Over 4,000 people were killed in Islamic extremist attacks in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali in 2019, according to the U.N.'s envoy for West Africa and the Sahel Mohamed Ibn Chambas.

Since 2016, extremist groups including the Islamic State West Africa Province and Ansaroul Islam have carried out attacks throughout the Sahel region of West Africa. But attacks increased fivefold in 2019 — deaths rose from 80 in 2016 to 1,800 in 2019.

Jihadist violence has now spread from the country’s north to the western Boucle du Mouhoun region where rice and maize are produced and transported to other areas, resulting in a food shortages and might cut off food for millions more in the region, according to The Associated Press.

It is feared that the COVID-19 pandemic might exacerbate the situation at a time when 2 million people in the country are already facing food insecurity.

“If production goes down in this area and if movement restrictions due to the coronavirus drive up food prices in the markets, it could push numbers of severely vulnerable people to double or triple,” Julia Wanjiru, communications coordinator for the Sahel and West Africa Club, an intergovernmental economic group, was quoted as saying.

According to the U.N., the number of people displaced in Burkina Faso rose 1,200 percent in 2019. There are about 600,000 internally displaced people in the country as it is becoming one of the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian crises. 

CHURCH ATTACK KILLS 24 IN BURKINA FASO

By Stefan J. Bos

18th February 2020 

By BosNewsLife Africa Service with additional reporting by Linda Bordoni in Vatican City and Stefan J. Bos at BosNewsLife News Center

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO (BosNewsLife) Suspected Islamic gunmen interrupted a weekly worship service at a Protestant church in northern Burkina Faso, killing 24 people, authorities confirmed late Monday, February 17. Another 18 people were wounded in Sunday’s attack rocking Pansy town in Yagha province, the regional governor said.

The armed terrorists attacked the peaceful local population, after having identified them and separated them from non-residents, added the governor, Colonel Salfo Kaboré. The provisional toll is 24 killed, including the pastor 18 wounded and individuals who were kidnapped, Kaboré added in published remarks.

Authorities said some 20 attackers separated men from women close to the church in Pansy. The church building was burned down, and several people were yet to be accounted for, according to Christians familiar with the situation.

The gunmen reportedly also looted oil and rice from shops and forced the three youth they kidnapped to help transport it on their motorbikes. A resident of the nearby town of Sebba, whose name was not identified for security reasons, said Pansy villagers had fled there for safety.

It was the latest in an escalation of Islamic attacks against devoted Christians and moderate Muslims in the area in recent days. Last week, also in Yagha province, evangelical church leaders and several family members were killed, aid workers confirmed.

ISLAMIC MILITANTS

On February 10, suspected Islamic militants in Sebba seized seven people at the home of a pastor.

In the early hours of February 11, the deacon of the Evangelical SIM Church, Lankoandé Babilibilé, was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in Sebba, said well-informed advocacy group Open Doors. His car was stolen and used to abduct Pastor Omar Tindano of the same church, along with two of Omar’s daughters, his son and two nephews. Yesterday, the news broke that Omar, his son, and his nephews had all been executed, the group explained.

His daughters were released, physically unharmed, on the same day, Open Doors added. All five bodies have been recovered, local authorities said.

Lankoandé helped establish the first churches in the Sebba region, while Omar was the president of the Sebba region of the Evangelical Church denomination, Open Doors confirmed. Separately, shooters reportedly attacked an evangelical church in the eastern town of Nagnounbougou. At least two believers were killed in that attack, Christians said.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis expressed concern about the attacks. He urged prayers for the victims after making a similar request and appeal for interreligious dialogue in Burkina Faso in November, following an attack that killed or injured scores of people.

ALARMING RATE

Church observers and activists say attacks against civilians, including Christians, are increasing at an alarming rate in the West African nation

Open Doors said Burkina Faso is now ranking 28th on its annual World Watch List of 50 nations where it is most challenging to be a Christian.

Violent attacks account for this enormous rise, it stressed. Christians in these areas require urgent prayer and support, said Illia Djadi, an Open Doors senior analyst on freedom of religion or belief in sub-Saharan Africa. They are traumatized and don’t know how to handle all this violence. Even close friends and members of SIM church are reluctant to share details with reporters, fearing further targeting.

Open Doors investigators noted a climate of fear for believers in Burkina Faso.

The advocacy group Human Rights Watch West Africa said: Perpetrators use victims links to government or their faith to justify the killings. Others appear to be reprisal killings for killings by the government security forces, it added.

THOUSANDS KILLED

Nearly 4,000 people were killed in jihadist attacks in Burkina Faso and neighboring Mali and Niger last year, according to United Nations estimates.

Observers say more than 1,300 civilians were killed in targeted attacks 2019 in Burkina Faso, more than seven times in the previous year.

The insecurity has created a humanitarian crisis with an estimated over 760,000 internally displaced people in the Muslim-majority nation. Refugees also face other challenges as Burkina Faso is an impoverished nation, even by West African standards. The landlocked country of 21 million people has also suffered from recurring droughts and military coups.

French-educated Roch Marc Kabore, who served as prime minister and speaker of parliament under veteran President Blaise Compaore, won the November 2015 presidential election, with promises of reforms.

But concerns over the economy and rights violations have overshadowed Kabore’s pledges to introduce changes in Burkina Faso, which means “land of honest men”, and has significant reserves of gold.

Dozens believed dead after attack by Islamic militants in Burkina Faso

Officials say that between 10 and 30 people were killed in the northern Soum province

The Guardian

January 28, 2020

Dozens of people are feared dead following an attack by Islamic militants on a village in Burkina Faso, the latest bloody incident in an unprecedented surge of violence across the restive Sahel region.

Details of the attack, which occurred on Saturday and targeted the village of Silgadji in the northern Soum province, were still unclear on Tuesday but a security official said casualties in the assault totalled between 10 and 30 dead.

In many such instances, initial death tolls are revised upwards when investigators reach the often remote areas where the raids take place.

Islamic extremists were still in the vicinity of the village on Monday, a resident in nearby Bourzanga town said, citing accounts from those who had fled.

The terrorists surrounded the people at the village market, before separating them into two groups. The men were executed and the women were ordered to leave the village, the source said. Security teams are trying to get to the site but access to the village has probably been booby-trapped with homemade mines, and they are having to proceed carefully.

Though once considered resistant to the phenomenon of Islamic extremism, Burkina Faso has suffered a rapid rise in Islamist extremism in recent years, a spillover of violence in neighbouring Mali.

The number of deaths from Islamist-linked attacks in Burkina Faso rose from about 80 in 2016 to more than 1,800 in 2019.

There were more than 4,000 deaths across the Sahel reported last year, according to the UN.

Saturday’s attack follows a massacre of 36 people at two villages in the northern Sanmatenga province earlier this month.

Extremist violence in the Sahel intensified after a coalition of Islamists and local separatist tribesmen took control over much of northern Mali in 2012.

A seven-year campaign led by French troops, the deployment of hundreds of US special forces, massive aid for local militaries and a billion dollar-a-year United Nations peacekeeping operation have been unable to decisively weaken the multiple overlapping insurgencies in the region and security has continued to deteriorate.

European officials are worried the Sahel is close to a tipping point that could see an irreversible slide into violent chaos that will strengthen extremist groups and send a new wave of migrants to Europe.

There are also concerns that the US will withdraw a significant proportion of its troops deployed in Africa, possibly undermining French military efforts in the region.

On Monday French officials said they hoped good sense would prevail and the United States would not cut crucial intelligence and logistics support for the French force of 4,500 troops based in Mali.

The Pentagon has announced plans to withdraw hundreds of military personnel from Africa as it redirects resources to address challenges from China and Russia after two decades focused on counter-terrorism operations. Those cuts could deepen following an ongoing global troop review.

France believes it is time to increase, not ease, pressure on militants to prevent Islamic State from rebuilding in the Sahel”, a senior French defence ministry official said.

The US currently has 6,000 military personnel in Africa, though only several hundred are deployed against militants in the Sahel.

Although some experts say a repositioning of forces is overdue, many US officials share French concerns about relieving pressure on militants in Africa.

Any withdrawal or reduction would likely result in a surge in violent extremist attacks on the continent and beyond, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democrat Chris Coons wrote earlier this month.

Gen François Lecointre, chief of staff of the French armed forces, said the loss of US intelligence from intercepted communications would be the biggest setback.

I’m doing my utmost to prevent this from happening, he said, adding that French drone-based spying systems would not be operational until year-end.

France said this month it would deploy 220 additional troops to the region, despite rising anti-French sentiment in some countries and criticism at home that its forces are bogged down.

Some French analysts have dismissed the decision as a political gesture and called for greater emphasis on a strategy that addresses the failings of local states in the Sahel and broader economic issues.

Burkina Faso, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, saw a tenfold rise in those displaced by the violence over 2019, with more than 560,000 forced out of their homes by December, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council. The figure is predicted to rise to 900,000 people by April

Burkina Faso needs more than bullets and bombs. Military engagement alone is failing to protect vulnerable communities. Donors have not yet responded to the enormous humanitarian needs with equal emphasis, warned NRC’s secretary general Jan Egeland, on a visit to the country this week.

Hunger is also a threat, with one in ten people in Burkina Faso likely to need food assistance by June.

Attacks on children in the Sahel have also risen dramatically over the past year. Mali recorded 571 grave violations against children during the first three quarters of 2019, compared to 544 in 2018 and 386 in 2017, according to Unicef.

Since the start of 2019, more than 670,000 children across the region have been forced to flee their homes because of armed conflict and insecurity.

Burkina Faso’s army is ill-equipped and poorly trained to deal with assaults that usually involve hundreds of highly mobile, lightly-armed militants travelling on motorbikes or in pickup trucks.

Burkina Faso: 11 soldiers killed in terrorist attack

Incident comes day after at least 35 civilians and seven soldiers were killed in one of the country's deadliest attacks 

Alaattin Dogru   |26.12.2019

At least 11 soldiers were killed Wednesday in a terrorist attack in northern Burkina Faso, according to local reports.

A detachment at Namissiguian military base in Soum province was ambushed while the soldiers were patrolling the village of Hallale.

It follows an incident on Tuesday morning when at least 35 civilians, most of them women, and seven soldiers were killed when terrorists attacked a military detachment and the civilian population in the town of Arbinda in the province.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Sahel region is home to many terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Daesh/ISIS.

Suspected jihadists kill 20 in Burkina Faso ON OCTOBER 7, 2019

Vanguard

Twenty people were killed in an attack by suspected jihadists on a gold-mining site in northern Burkina Faso on Friday, two sources said. Gunmen came to the Dolmande site in Soum province and fired on people working there, killing 20, a security source said on condition of anonymity on Sunday, according to Reuters report.

A local source said around 20 people had been killed in the attack, but gave no further details. There was no immediate comment from the Burkinabe authorities. Once a pocket of relative calm in the Sahel, Burkina has suffered a homegrown insurgency for the past three years, which has been amplified by a spillover of jihadist violence and criminality from its chaotic neighbour Mali. Friday’s bloodshed extends a run of recent violence, that includes the death of at least 29 people in attacks on a food convoy and a transport truck in early September.

16 assailants, troops killed in Burkina Faso attack

The Associated Press

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Friday, 2 March 2018

Sixteen people -- nine assailants and seven members of the security forces -- were killed in the capital of Burkina Faso on Friday when armed men attacked the French embassy and the country’s military headquarters, a government source said.

The bloodiest clashes in Ouagadougou were in the assault on the armed forces HQ, where five attackers and five members of the security forces died, the official said.

The army’s medical chief, Colonel Amado Kafando, said 75 people were being treated for wounds, giving a still-incomplete toll.

In contrast, three security sources reached from Paris -- two in France and one in West Africa -- have sketched a higher death toll, saying at least 28 people died in the attack on the military HQ alone.

Four attackers were neutralized in the attack on the French embassy, the government in a statement posted on its Information Service website.

A parallel attack targeting the headquarters of the Burkinabe armed forces left two dead, Information Minister Remis Fulgance Dandjinou told the state TV channel RTB.

A certain number of gendarmes and soldiers were wounded, but there were no known casualties among civilians, he said.

The attack has strong overtones of terrorism, the minister said.

In Paris, a French diplomatic source said there had been no French casualties.

Early Friday, gunfire and explosions rocked Burkina Faso’s capital in what the police said was a suspected attack by Islamic militants.

By midday the gunfire became intermittent and helicopters flew over the French Embassy in Ouagadougou. Witnesses at the national television office which faces the French Embassy told The Associated Press that five people came in a pick-up truck in front of the embassy and started shooting after saying “Allahu Akhbar.” They then set fire to the truck and began shooting.

Heavy smoke rose from the army joint chief of staff’s office in Ouagadougou, and witnesses said loud explosions were still heard around the military headquarters in the western part of the capital’s city center and far from the other area under attack that houses the embassies, the prime minister’s office and United Nations offices.

Burkina Faso’s police director general Jean Bosco Kienou told AP the form is that of a terrorist attack.

Plumes of black smoke could be seen above the army offices in western Ouagadougou where police and gendarmerie responded. Barricades were erected to keep people from all areas under assault.

Burkina Faso’s police said the defense and security forces are responding to attacks around the Prime Minister’s office and the United Nations.

France’s foreign affairs ministry published a message on their website warning of gunfire in the capital, and said that security forces are now intervening and enhanced security measures could be taken by authorities. It recommended people stay off the streets and remain in a safe place.

Ouagadougou has been attacked by Islamic militants targeting foreigners at least twice in the past few years.

In August, extremists opened fire as patrons dined on a Sunday night at the Aziz Istanbul restaurant, killing at least 18 people. In January 2016, Islamic militants attacked another cafe popular with foreigners in the capital, killing 30 people.

Both times security forces have struggled to contain the violence, waiting for hours before intervening at the scene.

Islamic militant threats also moved into new parts of Burkina Faso earlier this month with an attack by 10 people in an eastern town that killed an officer and wounded two others. Increased attacks staged at the border with Mali have forced thousands to flee over the past year. An Australian doctor who had spent decades treating civilians was also abducted along this border and remains missing.

The region is also now the home of a Burkina Faso militant  figure, Malam Dicko, who has collaborated with militants across the border in Mali. Among his objectives has been seeking to end the use of French, the former colonizer’s language, in regional schools. Burkinabe forces backed by French military counterparts have tried to capture Dicko but he remains at large.

Suspected jihadists kill 18 in attack on Burkina Faso restaurant

Thiam Ndiaga

August 13, 2017

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militants killed at least 18 people and wounded several during a raid on a restaurant in Burkina Faso's capital overnight, but security forces shot dead both attackers and freed people trapped inside the building.

"This is a terrorist attack," Communications Minister Remi Dandjinou told a news conference on Monday.

Burkina Faso, like other countries in West Africa, has been targeted sporadically by jihadist groups. Most attacks have been along its remote northern border with Mali, which has seen activity by Islamist militants for more than a decade.

A Reuters witness saw customers running out of the Aziz Istanbul restaurant in central Ouagadougou as police and paramilitary gendarmerie surrounded it, amid gunfire.

Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said two Canadians were among the dead and French Foreign Affairs minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a French citizen was killed.

Lebanon's interior ministry said three Lebananese died, including one who was also a Canadian national.

Earlier, Burkina Faso Foreign Affairs Minister Alpha Barry said at a news conference that seven Burkinabes, two Kuwaitis, a Nigerian, a Senegalese and a Turk were also among at least 18 killed.

French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the situation with Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Kabore, his office said, including the role of a new multinational military force aimed at fighting Islamist militants across the vast Sahel region of Africa.

A woman said she was in the restaurant celebrating her brother's birthday when the shooting started.

"I just ran but my brother was left inside," she told Reuters TV as she fled the building.

For many it was a grim echo of a similar attack on a restaurant and hotel in Ouagadougou in January 2016 in which 30 people were killed. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility.

AQIM and related Islamist groups were largely confined to the Sahara desert until they hijacked a rebellion by ethnic Tuareg separatists in Mali in 2012, and then swept south.

French forces intervened the following year to prevent them taking Mali's capital, Bamako, but they have since gradually expanded their reach across the region, launching high-profile attacks in Bamako, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, as well as much more frequent, smaller attacks on military targets.

Gunmen attacked a U.N. peacekeeping base in Mali's northern city of Timbuktu on Monday, the peacekeeping mission said, adding that it had deployed a rapid response force with helicopters to the scene.

In another incident on Monday, armed men opened fire on U.N. peacekeepers and Malian troops in Douentza, central Mali, killing a Malian soldier, according to Malian authorities. A peacekeeper was also killed, a U.N. spokesman in New York said.

A new al Qaeda-linked alliance of Malian jihadist groups claimed an attack in June that killed at least five people at a luxury Mali resort popular with Western expatriates just outside Bamako.

"I am speechless," Abdoulaye Bance said on a street near the Ouagadougou restaurant, where shops and banks were shuttered up and traffic light.

"It is not the first time this is happening in our country. There are many victims. There is a feeling of despair."

African nations launched a new multinational military force last month to tackle Islamist militants in the Sahel region, a huge band of territory that fringes the Sahara desert and stretches right across North Africa. However, the force will not be operational until later this year and currently faces a budget shortfall.

Macron's office said he and Kabore agreed it was "imperative" to speed up the force's implementation.

"They will have further contact with each other in the coming days, as well as with other regional heads of state over the progress of this plan," it said in a statement.

Some observers see the initiative by Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad as forming the basis of an eventual exit strategy for around 4,000 French troops now deployed to the volatile region. But Macron said Paris had no plans to withdraw them.

At least 23 dead, scores freed after hotel siege

By Faith Karimi and Sandra Betsis

January 16, 2016

(CNN) Attackers raided a luxury hotel in Burkina Faso overnight, shooting some and taking others hostage in a siege that lasted hours and ended with dozens of people dead.

An al Qaeda-linked terrorist group claimed responsibility for the assault at Splendid Hotel -- a popular meeting place for Western diplomats in the capital, Ouagadougou.

The attack began Friday night and dragged on under the cover of darkness. Security forces circled the perimeter to assess the situation before they stormed in hours later.

"Everyone was panicked and was lying down on the floor. There was blood everywhere, they were shooting at people at point blank," said Yannick Sawadogo, who survived the siege.

Security forces entered the hotel early Saturday and freed 126 hostages, half of whom were hospitalized, according to Burkina Faso's foreign minister, Alpha Barry.

Security Minister Simon Compaore said 23 people from 18 countries had been killed. Gilles Thibault, France's ambassador to Burkina Faso, said 27 were dead.

Two French nationals were among the dead, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported, citing the French Foreign Ministry.

It was unclear whether either death toll included the four attackers -- including two women -- that Compaore said were killed.

Thibault said three attackers died, and none of them were women.

Survivors described horrific scenes as the attackers paced and fired in the hotel Friday night.

"We could hear them talking and they were walking around and kept shooting at people who seemed alive," Sawadogo told CNN affiliate BFMTV.

Sawadogo said he escaped through a broken window, and could barely see because of smoke.

Burkinabe forces scoured rooms at the hotel, looking for terrorists and any remaining hostages. Those rescued included a government minister, state media reported.

The West African nation's forces received logistical support from American and French troops. Shortly after the forces stormed the hotel, the sounds of gunshots faded.

The attack in Burkina Faso appeared well-planned, with some of the attackers coming to the hotel during the day and mingling with guests, the foreign minister said.

When darkness fell, more attackers joined them, he said.

Before the hotel assault, they attacked the Cappuccino café across the street, which had about 100 people, according to the state broadcaster.

They then took off to the Splendid Hotel, where they seized hostages.

Witnesses said the attackers wore turbans and spoke a language not native to Burkina Faso, a former French colony.

U.S. forces helped with logistical support. The United States has about 75 military personnel in Burkina Faso, including 15 assigned to the U.S. Embassy, according to a U.S. defense official. An additional 60 help train and advise the French military in the nation.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the assault, local media reported. CNN could not independently confirm that claim.

The al Qaeda-linked Al-Mourabitoun said it conducted the attack, which had similarities to the one in neighboring Mali in November.

Al-Mourabitoun had claimed responsibility for the November attack at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali, which left 22 people dead.

The group's leader is veteran al Qaeda figure Mokhtar Belmokhtar, according to the Mauritania-based Al Akhbar news agency.

In June, Libya's interim government reported that he died in an American airstrike.

The attack comes a few months after Burkina Faso marked a turning point following a historic presidential election.

Burkina Faso elected a new president in November after nearly three decades of autocratic rule followed by a civil uprising.

Roch Marc Christian Kabore, the nation's former prime minister, won more than 53% of votes in that election.

Elections were postponed the month before because of a failed coup against the transitional government.

The West, particularly France, considers Burkina Faso a key ally in the fight against al Qaeda.

French President Francois Hollande said he stands with the nation against the "odious and cowardly attack."

The U.S. Embassy condemned the attack, describing it as a " senseless assault on innocent people."

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