The assessment of the attack on the capital of the province of Kossi has not yet been fixed. The attackers would be auxiliary of the Burkinabé army.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
Twenty-eight bodies were discovered the day before the New Year’s Eve in Nouna, in northwestern Burkina Faso, announced, Monday evening January 2, the government, an organization of civil society denouncing “abuses” committed by the army’s auxiliaries. “The government was informed of a drama that occurred in Nouna, chief town of the Kossi province, on the night of December 30 to 31, 2022,” said a statement by government spokesperson, Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo. The first information “report 28 people killed”.
The collective against the impunity and stigma of communities (CISC) denounced “abuses” committed by volunteers for the defense of the fatherland (VDP, army supplies). The government’s press release adds that an investigation “was immediately opened (…) to elucidate the circumstances of the drama and locate all responsibilities”. “Pending the outcome of the investigation”, he “calls the whole population in calm”, affirming “that all the arrangements are taken to shed light on these unacceptable violence”.
“This drama occurs at a time when Burkina Faso has initiated an operation to mobilize the whole people for a unit of action in the fight against terrorism,” notes the spokesperson. Since 2015, Burkina Faso has faced attacks on jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaida and the Islamic State which are multiplying since 2015. They left thousands of deaths and at least two million inappropriate and are partly behind two military coups in 2022.
“Balle killed”
The government claims to remain “fundamentally opposed to all forms of abuses or human rights violations for any reason whatsoever”.
A press release from the prosecutor at the Nouna tribunal de grande instance, Armel Sama, specifies “that most of the victims, all of male sex, were killed by bullets”.
Before the publication of these official press releases, the CISC, a human rights organization, had just denounced “targeted abuses on civilian populations”. “Armed civilians claiming” VDPs “engage” freely to organized looting and targeted abuses on civilian populations on a background of facies and stigmatization “.
Saturday, “following a terrorist attack that would have suffered the headquarters of the VDP of Nouna (…) of the armed dozos (hunters), identified by the victims as being VDP, led to reprisals, deadly actions “. “The balance sheet rises to 21 people killed including children, but it continues to increase as the information comes from the field,” said Daouda Diallo, the secretary general of the CISC.