Burkina Faso updates
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Burkina Faso has declared another state of national mourning after suspected jihadis killed at least 80 people in an attack in the west African country’s restive north-east.
The massacre near the village of Gorgadji is the third major attack in two weeks in an area that has become the centre of a violent insurgency roiling the Sahel region.
Burkina Faso’s government sharply revised the death toll in Wednesday’s attack from 47 to 80, including 65 civilians and 15 military policemen. In a statement on Thursday, it offered condolences to families of the dead and commended its soldiers for “neutralising 58 terrorists in the attack”.
The incident highlights how under-equipped and poorly trained troops in the region are being overrun by Isis- and al-Qaeda-linked militant groups that have killed thousands and displaced millions since an Islamist insurgency in northern Mali, which prompted a French military intervention.
A report released on Friday by Amnesty International revealed that Serbian arms bought by the Burkinabe government were now in the hands of armed groups, underscoring the extent to which local troops are outmatched.
“In this increasingly dire context, states must act with extreme caution when considering arms transfers to the Sahel. Not only is there an unacceptably high risk of diversion to armed groups, national armies and police forces in the region have appalling human rights records,” said Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty’s head of business security and human rights.
Wednesday’s attack was the third targeting Burkinabe soldiers since August 4, when 19 troops and 11 civilians were killed in the volatile tri-border region near Niger and Mali that has become the epicentre of the conflict.
It comes two months after child militants killed at least 132 people near the north-east gold mining village of Solhan, the deadliest attack in the history of the conflict. On Monday militants killed 37 people just over the border in Niger and on Thursday 15 soldiers were killed in central Mali.
The main jihadi groups in the Sahel are Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, an Isis offshoot that is considered the most brutal, and the al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, a coalition of groups that is more widespread and has engaged in negotiations with authorities in Mali and Burkina Faso.
The attacks come as France, which has led the anti-terrorism campaign in the Sahel since intervening in Mali in 2013, begins a drawdown of its 5,000-troop presence and re-evaluates its presence in the region.
Heni Nsaibia, Sahel analyst at the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, said the recent attacks reflected the internal dynamics of the groups. Those that resulted in mass civilian casualties were in ISGS-dominated areas and “appear to be a continuation of the group’s approach to heavy-handedly subjugate the population”, he said.
JNIM, meanwhile, is attacking armed forces as it seeks to consolidate control over greater territory ahead of the dry season, when international and local forces campaigns pick up, he said.
Ayisha Osori, ex-director of the Dakar-based Open Society Initiative West Africa, said the recent incidents showed “an escalation in violence”.
“What’s also worth looking at and asking is: what is the source of intelligence and hardware for the terrorists who seem to know when and where there are large group movements and why are they not deterred by the presence of soldiers?” she said.
