In Burkina Faso, “They Even Kill Children,” Refugees Say

Photo: Issouf Sanogo Agence France-Presse Burkinabe refugees in the alleys of a refugee camp in Ouangolodougou, northern Ivory Coast, September 25, 2024

Pierre Donadieu – Agence France-Presse à Ouangolodougou

Published yesterday at 11:27 p.m.

• Africa

In northern Côte d’Ivoire, refugees from neighboring Burkina Faso are fleeing two threats: the jihadist attacks that are bloodying the country and the exactions of civilian auxiliaries of the army who are particularly targeting the Peul ethnic group.

“It was a baptism day. All of a sudden, we heard gunshots. The jihadists killed all our husbands and threatened us with the same fate the next time they visited,” says Ami G., a young woman from the Mossi ethnic group, the majority in Burkina, as she wipes away a tear that runs down her face.

A year ago, armed men landed in her village, near Titao, in the north of the country. That same evening, with her six children, she left everything behind and walked for several days to flee her village.

“They had already come, had forced us to wear long black dresses. And then, they threatened us with reprisals, because we talked to the soldiers. There, it’s war, they even kill children,” she says.

At the end of her journey, she crossed the border to “find peace” in Ouangolodougou, 600 km further south, in Côte d’Ivoire, where she is housed in a reception center for “asylum seekers” — the Ivorian authorities do not recognize their refugee status.

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Murders and looting

A little further on, in the camp, Adama M., wearing a blue veil and yellow loincloth, remembers the day armed men came to loot their homes.

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“They shot my aunt in the head and tied up and kidnapped my big brother. They told us not to cry,” she says, after traveling 900 km from Gorom-Gorom, in the far north of Burkina.

Atrocities committed by jihadist groups against civilians have left more than 26,000 dead in Burkina since 2015, according to the NGO Acled, which records victims of conflict around the world. The number of people displaced by the violence is estimated at more than two million.

But other abuses are forcing Burkinabe to flee their country: those of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP), civilian auxiliaries of the army, who were increased in strength under the leader of the ruling junta, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, to defend villages against attacks.

The jihadists’ ranks include a majority of Fulani, an ethnic group of nomadic herders. And according to numerous testimonies collected by AFP, the entire community has become the target of the VDP.

Abdoulaye D., 79, hugs his one-year-old granddaughter. He fled his region of Bobo-Dioulasso with his grandchildren when men in “arms and fatigues” killed his two sons and took all his livestock.

“They tied up all the Peuls and executed them with guns,” he told AFP.

When the name of the junta leader, Ibrahim Traoré, is mentioned, a flash of anger crosses his eyes: “The government is making ethnic distinctions. Burkina and me, it's over, even when I die, they mustn't send my body there,” says the old man who arrived in Côte d'Ivoire four months ago.

Similar testimonies within the community are legion. Aminata S. left Nouna (North) in January 2023 after the VDP killed her husband and parents, a massacre attributed by Amnesty International to “auxiliary forces of the army”.

“They arrived on a Friday, they killed my whole family. There were three Peul camps, they shot everywhere and killed 31 people,” she explains.

Ethnic targeting

She also no longer wants to “hear about” Captain Traoré and assures that she “does not want to return to Burkina”.

“Everyone knows that this is where there is peace”, agrees Amadou Barry who also fled.

“Fulani traders who we used to see coming here regularly were killed by the VDP. They said they were supplying the jihadists. They target people who travel back and forth between the two countries”, confides an Ivorian resident of Ouangolodogou who wishes to remain anonymous.

“In the bush, in Burkina, if you are Fulani they say you are a jihadist. “If we see you, you're dead. This is ethnic targeting,” says Moussa T., who also came to seek safety in Côte d'Ivoire.

At the Niornigué reception camp, where 98% of the population is of Fulani origin, many Mossis, the majority ethnic group in Burkina Faso, did not stay, officially to find fields to cultivate elsewhere and live off their harvests.

“Many left because they did not want to live with the Fulani. When they see them, it reminds them of the jihadists,” confides an asylum seeker, “but for me, living together is good, these people have done nothing to me.”