31, January 2023
Burkina Faso: A dozen security officers killed as violence spirals 0
Suspected jihadists killed 13 people, most of them from the military, in the lastest such attack in Burkina Faso’s restive north, the army said Tuesday.
Burkina Faso’s State Information Agency posted on its Facebook page that a dozen security officers and a civilian were killed Monday in Falagountou in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region during clashes between the military and jihadis.
Ten military police officers, two members of an auxiliary force supporting the army, and a civilian died as a result of a “terrorist attack on Monday” in the locality of Falangoutou, the army said in a statement.
Ten other military police officers were missing and another five wounded in the attack, the army said.
Fifteen abducted people found dead: governor
The latest attack followed a weekend of violence, when another 20 people were killed in two attacks in the country’s east-central and western regions.
Fifteen people seized by suspected jihadists in western Burkina Faso at the weekend have been found dead, the region’s governor said on Tuesday.
“Fifteen bodies were found on Monday in Linguekoro village in Comoe province,” said Colonel Jean Charles dit Yenapono Somé, governor of the Cascades region, in a statement.
Four people were executed Saturday afternoon when gunmen intercepted their van between Tenkodogo and Ouargaye villages.
On Sunday, a passenger mini-bus coming from the western city of Banfora was intercepted by armed men, said Col. Somé in a statement.
Eight women and one man were freed, the rest of the people were abducted and their lifeless bodies were found with bullet holes the following day, he said.
Armed groups, coups, fleeing civilians
Jihadi violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State Group has ravaged the West African country for years killing thousands and displacing nearly 2 million people. Nearly 5,000 civilians have been killed since 2015, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
The violence has sowed frustration and distrust among the population and led to two coups last year. The new junta leader, Ibrahim Traoré, seized power in September promising to stem the violence but attacks are increasing.
Traoré has mobilised tens of thousands of civilian fighters to combat the jihadis alongside the army. But analysts says the civilian fighters are accused of targeting other civilians perceived to be working with the jihadis, which is fueling retaliatory attacks.
“The types of mass-atrocities that are occurring were expected, as the conflict was expected to escalate in the coming months due to the increased mobilization of the population through the (volunteer) program and the increasing trend of extrajudicial killings by defence and security forces observed in recent months,” said Héni Nsaibia, senior researcher at ACLED.
“With the increase in state violence and state-sanctioned violence, it is not surprising that militant violence is escalating and further fueling cycles of attacks and retaliation,” he said.
Source: AP
23, February 2023
Thomas Sankara reburied in Burkina Faso 0
Burkina Faso’s revolutionary leader, Thomas Sankara, was reburied Thursday, eight years after his body was exhumed as part of an investigation.
Sankara’s body, and those of the 12 people who died with him, were reburied at the site of his assassination, which has since become a memorial for Sankara featuring a life-size statue of the former leader pumping his fist in the air.
Soldiers and community leaders paid tribute during a ceremony Thursday, some posing for pictures by Sankara’s coffin. All the coffins were draped in Burkina Faso flags with a photo beside them.
Sankara and the others were gunned down in the capital, Ouagadougou, during a 1987 coup and buried hastily, their bodies only allowed to be dug up in 2015, after the ousting of former President Blaise Compaore.
Sankara, a charismatic Marxist leader with a reputation as “Africa’s Che Guevara,” came to power in 1983 at the age of 33 after he and Compaore led a leftist coup that overthrew a moderate military faction. But in 1987, Compaore turned on his former friend in a coup in which he seized power and then ruled the country for 30 years.
Last year, Compaore, who now lives in Ivory Coast, was tried in absentia and convicted of complicity in their murders. A Burkina Faso military tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment. Compaore’s right-hand man, Gilbert Diendere, and former spy chief Tousma Yacinthe Kafando were also given life sentences. Eight other people were found guilty of a range of charges including giving false testimonies and complicity in undermining state security.
While Sankara’s family was happy that he was finally laid to rest, they said the place of burial was like a slap in the face because of the horrors that occurred there.
“That place is painful for us to put our feet there. A lot of people were tortured there and crimes committed there and murders,” his younger brother Paul Sankara told The Associated Press by phone from the United States where he lives. The family asked the government to bury him elsewhere but was told it was at the army’s discretion since he was a soldier.
The West African nation has been struggling with a jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that has killed thousands and displaced nearly 2 million people and sowed division among the population leading to two coups last year. The current junta leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traore, has been likened by some to Sankara, as an anti-imperialist pan-African leader, and is using the reburial to increase support, analysts say.
“With undertaking a symbolic state funeral for Sankara, Traore aims to boost his image by appealing to the collective memory of the young revolutionary leader that still shapes society in Burkina Faso,” said Mucahid Durmaz, senior analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk intelligence firm.
Source: AP