A report published Thursday, April 25, by Human Rights Watch documents a double massacre committed by Burkina Faso soldiers on February 25, 2024 in two cities in the north of the country. The NGO reports that 223 civilians, including women and children, were executed. This is one of the worst massacres in the country, hit by a spiral of terrorist violence since 2015.
The Burkinabe army executed at least 223 civilians, including 56 children, on February 25 in two villages in the northern province of Yatenga, according to a report published on Thursday, April 25, by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which denounces a ” retaliation attack” after a series of deadly operations by terrorist groups.
That day, Armed men carried out several attacks against a mosque in Natiaboani, a town in the east of the country, and a church in Essakane-Village, a commune in the north. The operations also targeted security forces, in particular the military detachment of Tankoualou (east), the 16th Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) near Kongoussi (center-north) and the mixed battalion of the Ouahigouya area (north ).
According to HRW, This latest assault, perpetrated by members of the Jnim (Groupe de soutien à l'islam et aux musulmans, affiliated with Al Qaeda), provoked violent reprisals against the towns of Nondin and Soro, located about twenty kilometers from the site of the attack, which claimed the lives of a dozen Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP), civilian auxiliaries of the army.
They are terrorists!
Based on dozens of eyewitness accounts, photographs and videos shared by survivors, the NGO was able to reconstruct the tragic events of that dark day.
Around 7 a.m., Islamist fighters launched a massive, coordinated attack on the Ouahigouya military base.
Burkinabé television announced that soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion, a special forces unit involved in counterinsurgency operations, had chased the fleeing terrorists toward the city of Thiou further north.
Around 8 in the morning, several residents of Nondin and Soro, two towns under the yoke of armed groups, reported the passage of fighters shouting “Allah Akbar.”
Thirty minutes later, more than 100 Burkinabe soldiers arrived by motorcycle, truck and car in the Basseré neighborhood of Nondin, near the main paved road.
Wearing their ocher uniforms, characteristic of the country's armed forces, the soldiers began knocking on the doors of the houses, demanding to check the identity documents of the villagers, who were then grouped into several groups before being coldly executed.
A 61-year-old man who lost 11 members of his family in the massacre recounts how masked soldiers, who spoke Mooré – the most spoken language in the country – “with a Uahigouya accent” ordered his relatives to leave the house.
They made us sit down… and then they opened fire on us. They shot us like this, killing all the members of my family. “They wounded me in the armpit because I raised my hands to ask for mercy and another bullet passed through my right thigh.”
Five kilometers further, in Soro, this macabre scenario was repeated. A 32-year-old woman narrated it:
They separated us into groups of men and women. They asked us only one question: 'Why didn't they tell us that the jihadists were coming?' And then they added, answering themselves: 'They are terrorists!' Then they started shooting at us with live ammunition. They shot me in the right leg and I lost consciousness. I didn't know what happened next until some people […] They came to help me. There were corpses falling on top of me
Burkina Faso justice says it is investigating
Human Rights Watch says it has obtained two lists of victims' names compiled by survivors and others who helped bury the bodies.
According to the NGO's account, Soldiers killed 44 people, including 20 children, in Nondin village, and 179 people, including 36 children and four pregnant women, in the neighboring village of Soro.
Questioned at the time by AFP, several security sources stated that the response led by the army and the VDP after the attack on the Ouahigouya base had made it possible to “neutralize several hundred terrorists.”
HRW claims to have been unable to confirm the VDP's involvement in the reprisals against the residents of Soro and Nondin.
“As a general rule, the VDP and the army act together. The difficulty is that the VDP wears the same uniform. Therefore, it is not always possible to distinguish them from other soldiers,” specifies Wassim Nasr, France 24 journalist and specialist in jihadist movements.
The current president of the transition, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who has made improving the security situation his top priority, announced last year the recruitment of 50,000 of these civilian auxiliaries. A system that is supposed to respond to the security emergency in a country controlled 40% by terrorist groups, but accused of fueling intercommunity violence.
After the Soro and Nondin massacres, the presentation of several statements to the authorities, by the victims and relatives of the deceased, led the Burkinabe justice system to open an investigation.
In a press release on March 3, Ouahigouya prosecutor Aly Benjamin Coulibaly explained that he had been informed of “massive murderous attacks” of which “the overall provisional toll amounted to about 170 people executed.”
According to Aly Benjamin Coulibaly, a team of investigators headed to the affected villages on February 29 to “conduct all investigations and collect all evidence.” Two months later, the perpetrators of the attack have still not been identified.
“The authorities have many times announced investigations after abuses or massacres perpetrated by security forces, but there has never been progress nor has information been provided to the population about the progress of these investigations. We fear that once again justice will not be successful for the victims. and their families who had the courage, despite suffering and trauma, to go to the gendarmerie to testify,” said Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
Massacres that are part of a military strategy
Soldier-led Burkina Faso, which took power by force in 2022, faces jihadist violence attributed to armed movements affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group, as well as reprisals attributed to the armed forces and their representatives, which They have caused almost 20,000 deaths and more than two million displaced since 2015.
International and local NGOs They periodically implicate security forces in abuses and even murders committed against civilians accused of collaborating with armed groups.
A little over a year ago today, on April 20, 2023, soldiers killed 83 men, 28 women and 45 children, burned houses and looted property in the village of Karma and its surroundings, in this same province of Yatenga.
“This is the reality of the conflict in Burkina Faso: civilian populations trapped between a rock and a hard place, victims both of their own security forces that are supposed to protect them and of armed Islamist groups,” emphasizes Carine Kaneza Nantulya.
“The Burkinabe state is not present in these areas except through military operations. If a village head decides to inform the authorities of the jihadist movements, it is not certain that the army will be able to protect the population,” summarizes Wassim Nasr. .
According to experts interviewed by France 24, The repetition and magnitude of the massacres attributed to the Burkinabe army suggest an alleged tactic on the part of the security forces.
“These abuses appear to be part of a plan to combat terrorism that does not respect human rights or international humanitarian law,” said Carine Kaneza Nantulya. “Given the frequency and severity of these massacres, here we have reached the level of crimes against humanity.”
“We saw the same thing in Mali with a military strategy of retaliation against civilians aimed at deterring them from supporting jihadists,” says Wassim Nasr. And he added: “But it doesn't work. On the contrary, we see recruitment skyrocketing in the ranks of armed groups and leading to a situation in which jihadists end up presenting themselves as defenders of civilian populations.”
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