The attack targeted residents of Madjoari, who were trying to leave this locality placed under the blockade of jihadists. It is the bloodiest since that perpetrated almost a year ago in Solhan, in the northeast, which had left 132 dead.
Le Monde with AFP
The deadly attacks attributed to armed jihadists against civilians and soldiers have multiplied in recent weeks in Burkina Faso. The last one took place on Wednesday and killed around fifty people among the civilian population, according to a provisional assessment announced by Colonel Hubert Yameogo, governor of the Eastern region, Thursday, May 26.
“of the inhabitants of Madjoari”, who were trying to leave this locality placed under the blockade of jihadists, “were targeted” near a bridge “by unidentified armed individuals”, said the colonel in a press release . This attack is the bloodiest since that perpetrated almost a year ago in Solhan, in the northeast, which had left 132 dead.
Like other municipalities in the North and eastern Burkina, such as Djibo and Titao, that of Madjoari was placed under blockade by the jihadists who strike these regions. The army sometimes manages to send convoys of supplies. When this is not the case, destitute and desperate inhabitants try to flee, according to residents attached by the France-Presse agency (AFP) from Ouagadougou. This is what’s going on in Madjoari for a week.
These are “these populations who have been intercepted and executed by the terrorists,” said one of them, adding that “all the victims are men”. The Governor of the Eastern Region, assured that “security actions are underway in order to bring back tranquility”.
approximately 200 dead in two months
The new strong man in the country, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who overthrew the president elected Roch Marc Christian Kaboré at the end of January, accused of being ineffective in the face of jihadist violence, made the security question His “priority”. In early April, he announced the creation of local dialogue committees with jihadist groups to try to stop violence. A strategy that does not seem to bear the expected fruits for the moment.
Before the attack on Wednesday, several others recently took place in Madjoari against soldiers and civilians. On May 19, the military detachment was targeted there, killing eleven soldiers and wounding twenty others. Five days earlier, an attack on civilian populations had left seventeen and seven injured.
For two months, attacks on civilians and soldiers in the north and east of the country are regular and have left around 200 dead, according to an AFP count.
The deadliest, since Burkina became in 2015 the target of jihadist attacks, was committed on the night of June 4 to 5, 2021, in the village of Solhan. Armed men – including “young people aged 12 to 14” according to the authorities – had killed 132 people according to the government, 160 according to local sources.
Burkina Faso, especially in the North and East, has been struck for seven years by movements affiliated with Al-Qaida and the Islamic State which have left more than 2,000 deaths, civilians and military, and nearly two million displaced.