Two groups of women were kidnapped on Thursday and Friday, around Arbinda, in the north of the country, according to local officials and residents. The region has been particularly confronted since 2015 with the attacks of jihadist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
About fifty women were kidnapped on Thursday January 12 and Friday January 13, by alleged jihadists in Arbinda in northern Burkina Faso, local officials and residents told Agence France-Presse of this locality, regular theater of violence.
According to the testimony of several residents and local officials wishing to remain anonymous, a first group of around forty women was abducted about ten kilometers south-east of Arbinda, and another of around twenty next day to the north of this town. Some have escaped, returned to their village and testified.
“Women have gathered to pick leaves and wild fruits in the bush because there is nothing to eat,” said one of the inhabitants, adding that they were gone with their carts in Thursday.
“On Thursday evening, not seeing them come back, we thought that their carts had had a problem, but three survivors came back to tell us what happened,” added another resident.
Underlined area of jihadist groups 2>
According to him, the next day, 8 kilometers north of Arbinda, around twenty women who were not informed of the first kidnapping were in turn victims of a rap.
“In the two groups, women have managed to escape the vigilance of the terrorists and returned to the village on foot,” he said. “We think that the kidnappers took them to their different bases,” he continued.
According to local officials who have confirmed the kidnappings, the army and its civilian auxiliaries have carried out the area, without success.
The commune of Arbinda is located in the Sahel region, in northern Burkina Faso, an underlined area of jihadist groups and which is difficult to rejected in food. Nearly a million people are currently living in underlined areas, in the north or east of the country, according to the United Nations.
Burkina Faso, in particular in its northern half, has faced since 2015 with attacks by jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization, which are multiplying. They left thousands of deaths and at least two million inappropriates.
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Captain Ibrahim Traoré, transitional president from the military coup of September 30, 2022 – the second in eight months -, gave himself the goal “the Reconquency of the territory occupied by these hordes of terrorists “.