Jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso

The Jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso (French: Insurrection djihadiste au Burkina Faso) is an ongoing war and civil conflict between the Government of Burkina Faso and Islamist rebels.

Background

The delegates of various Islamist groups meet Burkinabé politicians in 2012.

Blaise Compaoré, president of Burkina Faso from 1987 to 2014, treated Islamists somewhat better than French colonial officials did. Compaore's Mauritanian advisor, Moustapha Ould Limam Chafi and General Gilbert Diendéré both contacted several Islamist leaders in order to free hostages held by these groups.

Burkina Faso acted as a mediator during the Mali War between rebels and the government. Burkina Faso led an intervention into the country in 2013. However, in November 2014, Compaoré was overthrown, marking the end of his rule and creating a scenario of instability.

Timeline

2015–2016

On August 23, 2015, the insurgency in the Maghreb spread to Burkina Faso, beginning with a attack on a gendarmerie by alleged Boko Haram members. Between August 2015 and October 2016, seven different posts were attacked across the country, slaying 15 and injuring 11. On October 9, three gendarmes, one rebel, and one civilian were slain during a battle in Samorougan, Hauts-Bassins. On May 31, 2016, three police officers were shot dead in Intangom. On September 1, 2016, a team of two to four jihadists murdered a customs officer and a civilian in Markoye, injuring three others. Two days later, Sahrawi terrorist Adnane Abou Walid Al-Sahraoui accepted responsibility for the attack.

On January 15, 2016, terrorists attacked the capital city of Ouagadougou, killing 30 people. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al-Mourabitoune both took responsibility.

2017

In 2016, the amount of attacks spiked after a new group was founded : Ansarul Islam, led by imam Ibrahim Malam Dicko. The group is particularly active at the border territories of Mali and Burkina Faso. A large proportion of attacks have been focused on Soum province. On December 16, Ansarul Islam killed dozens of people in the attack on Nassoumbou. On the first of January, 2017, an Imam and defect from Asarul Islam was assassinated in Tongomayel. Two months later, a teacher was murdered in the village of Kourfayel, Soum province. On March 22, the leader of Ansarul Islam, Harouna Dicko, was shot dead in Pétéga by security forces. By this point, a total of 70 people, the majority of them soldiers, gendarmes and police officers, had been killed in a series of 20 attacks.

Between March 27-April 10, 2017, the governments of Mali, France, and Burkina Faso launched a joint operation name "Operation Panga," composed of 1,300 soldiers from the three countries, in Fhero forest, near the Burkina Faso-Mali border, considered a sanctuary for Ansarul Islam. On April 5, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin detonated an improvised explosive device on a French military vehicle, injuring two people. An allied detachment found them during a searching operation, but were attacked by the armed Islamist group again, slaying a soldier. During the ensuing twelve days of searching, two jihadists were killed, 8 taken prisoner, and up to 200 suspects arrested. The French forces quickly returned to the offensive, leading several successful raids against military targets.

On May 27, in Pétéga, a retired policeman was assassinated by a group of armed men, but one of them was killed during the operation. On the night between 2 and 3 June, at least five people, including a couple and their child, were murdered in targeted attacks across Soum province. On June 9, military forces rounded up 74 villagers in the town of Djibo accused of collaborating with Ansarul Islam. Several of the villagers were tortured, two fatally. On July 12, a shootout between authorities and jihadists took place, with no casualties.

The head of Ansarul Islam, Ibrahim Malam Dicko was killed in June 2017. The group announced a new leader, Jafar Dicko. On the night of 24 to 25 July, five members of Ansarul Islam were assassinated in the villages of Ndidja, Sibé and Neyba, Soum province, possibly by the new leadership.

On August 14, 2017, a pair of armed men entered a restaurant in Ouagadougou, murdering 18 people before they were shot dead by Burkinabè authorities.

On August 17, a Burkinabè army vehicle rolled over an explosive in Touronata, killing three people and injuring two more. This is the first such incident in the country's history. On September 15, three men, including an imam and the local village chief, were slain by armed men in Soum province. On 23 September, seven soldiers were killed in a mine explosion. Three days later, two gendarmes were killed in an ambush by jihadists. On November 9, the Burkina Faso Armed Forces successfully neutralized 12 jihadists in the village of Ariel.

2018

On March 2, 2018, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin attacked the French embassy in Ouagadougou as well as the general staff of the Burkinabè army. Eight soldiers and eight attackers were killed, and a further 61 soldiers and 24 civilians were injured .

In 2018, the insurgency expanded to the east of the country. The jihadists launched three attacks on June 13 : in Tindangou, against a police checkpoint, and on the police station and gendarmerie brigade of Comin-Yanga. During the last attack security forces managed to shoot an assailant. On August 12, six people were killed by rebels in a bomb attack in Boungou, near Fada N'Gourma. On the night of 27-28 August, eight soldiers died after an explosive device detonated near Pama. On the night of 14-15 September, Jihadists murdered nine people in the villages of Diabiga and Kompiembiga including a religious leader. A few weeks later, rebels kidnapped three employees in a gold mine - an Indian, a South-African and a Burkinabé, slaying three gendarmes in the process. On October 4, six soldiers died after their military convoy ran over an explosive device. That night, an army of forty Islamists launched an attack against local gendarmes in Inata. The following day, six policemen died in a mine bombing near Sollé.

In early October, the Armed Forces of Burkina Faso unrolled a major military operation in the country's East, supported by French forces. On December 3, gendarmes successfully repelled an ambush at Bougui, ten kilometres from Fada N'Gourma, killing six assailants and injuring another.

2019

File:Burned house in Yirgou 2019.jpg

Aftermath of the Anti-Fulani pogrom in Yirgou.

Main article: 2019 attacks in Burkina Faso

On January 1, 2019, armed men murdered six people in the village of Yirgou, Barsalogho department. The villagers, mostly ethnic Mossis, (who form 52% of Burkina Faso's population) responded by massacring the Fulani members of the town, in what is now known as the Yirgou massacre.

On January 10, a group of 36 jihadists slew twelve civilians in Gasseliki. 17 days later, ten more civilians were killed in Sikiré, near Arbinda. On January 28, four Burkinabé soldiers were killed and five others wounded in Nassoumbou. From 3-4 February, jihadists are reported to have massacred 14 civilians in Kaïn, 80 kilometres from Ouahigouya. On February 4, the army reportedly neutralized 146 jihadists in the departments of Kaïn, Banh and Bomborokuy. Human Rights Watch alleged that the military had carried out several summary executions in the process. The Burkinabé Movement for Human and Peoples' Rights reported that no evidence was found of an attack carried out by terrorists in Kain on that date, and that about sixty civilians were executed without trial by the soldiers.

On February 15, the Centre-Est region experienced its first attack. Four Burkinabés and a Spanish priest were killed at a customs post in Nohao, close to the border with Togo.

According to Human Rights Watch, between mid-2018 to February 2019, at least 42 people were murdered by jihadists and a minimum of 116 mostly Fulani civilians were killed by military forces without trial. From March 31 to April 2, ethnic clashes between Fulani, Kurumbas, and Mossis killed 62 people in Arbinda.

In 2019, Jihadist groups began to start a persecution campaign against Christians. The campaign began on April 28, 2019, when six people, including a pastor, were killed by a group of 10 to 20 people inside a Protestant church in Silgadji. On May 12, six more people, including one priest, died in a Catholic church in Dablo after it was raided by Islamists. The next day, a Catholic procession was targeted near Kayon and Singa-Rimaïbé, in Zimtanga department. Four people were murdered and a statue of the Virgin Mary was destroyed.

On the night of 9-10 May, French forces attacked a jihadist encampment near Gorom-Gorom, freeing four hostages — two French, one South-Korean and one American. Four jihadists and two French soldiers died.

Despite this success, massacres have continued to grow more common. On June 9, 19 civilians died in an attack on Arbinda. On 18 June, armed men murdered 17-18 people in the village of Béléhédé. On June 22, 15 villagers in Sagho and Toekédogo, Barsalogho department, were killed, and on the night of 25-26 July, 22 other villagers died in a massacre in Dibilou, nearby the city of Kaya.

According to the NGO, Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, armed violence in Burkina Faso jumped by 174 % in 2019, with nearly 1,300 civilians dead and 860,000 deplaced.

2020

On January 4, 2020, a bus carrying mainly middle school students blew up after it ran over an explosive device between Toéni and Tougan, resulting in fourteen deaths. On January 20, jihadists attacked the villages of Nagraogo and Alamou, inside Barsalogho, Sanmatenga, and massacred 36 civilians. The day later, the Parliament of Burkina Faso adopted a law permitting the recruitment of civilian militias called Koglweogo to fight the jihadists. The idea was initially proposed by president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in November 2019.

On January 25, the village of Silgadji was attacked again, this time with a death toll of 39 civilians. Three days after, six soldiers were killed between Madjoari and Pama, in Kompienga province. On February 12th, two civilians were killed by jihadists in Tanwalbougou.

On Sunday, February 16, a Protestant church in Pansi was attacked by armed jihadists, who murdered 24 people (including the pastor) and wounding 20 more. This was a week before five people (also including a pastor) were slain in a church in the neighbouring town of Sebba.

On February 29, Sebba was attacked again, leaving ten policemen dead.

On March 8, the Fulani villages of Barga-Peulh and Dinguila-Peulh, Barga department, were raided by pro-government militias, leaving forty civilians dead.

In October, around fifty refugees who had fled elsewhere tried to return to their home region, thinking that the violence had decreased. Their convoy was ambushed in the middle of the night, ten kilometers from Pissila. 25 male refugees, approximately half of the convoy, were murdered by the attackers. All women and children were spared.

2021

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Self-defense forces in Burkina Faso in 2021

From 4-5 June, unknown militants massacred over 170 people in the villages of Solhan and Tadaryat.

On August 20, jihadists killed 80 people in Gorgadji, including 59 civilians.On November 14, the Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin attacked a gendarmerie in Soum province, killing 53 soldiers. On November 21, an attack in Foubé resulted in nine soldiers dead and ten civilians killed.

2022

On 15 January, at least 10 civilians were killed in an attack blamed on jihadists in northern Burkina Faso, in the village of Namssiguian in Bam province.

Humanitarian situation

File:Des déplacés peuls sur le site de Barsalogho au petit matin, au Burkina Faso, le 15 janvier 2019.png

Displaced Fulani civilians in the aftermath of the Yirgou massacre.

A humanitarian crisis has erupted in the aftermath of the conflict, with thousands of people killed by both sides.

Government forces have summarily executed countless of civilians, disproportionately targeting ethnic Fulani. In October 2019, 14 men had their turbans ripped off by government forces, then forced into a truck and executed. Fulanis have also been subject to violence by pro-government civilians, such as during the 2019 Yirgou massacre, in which hundreds of civilians were murdered by ethnic Mossis.

In 2020, a mass grave of over 180 civilians was found near Djibo, killed by government forces. Summary executions and war crimes by the military have become an ordinary incident in the town. In one separate incident, 10 civilians were killed in a market place in Petagoli, three of them Dogon foreigners from Mali.

Jihadists have also been guilty of human rights abuses. Villagers have been terrorized during their everyday lives, often prohibited from holding baptisms or marriages; the assassination of local elders has become a common occurrence. From April 2019 to January 2020, Human Rights Watch recorded the killing of at least 256 civilians in a series of 20 different attacks.

Islamists have also targeted schools, the most famous example happening on November 12, 2018, when six Islamists broke into a primary school, mugged the principal, and attacked several students. This was one of the few local cases in which the people responsible for such an attack were arrested. Rebels have justified attacks on schools by painting them as French and Western-style indoctrination programs.