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Kidnapped in northern Burkina Faso fifty women

2023-01-16T13:22:38.556Z


The inhabitants of Arbinda had moved away from the town to collect leaves and wild fruits to eat Women farmers in Burkina Faso in October 2019.WFP/GEORGE FOMINYEN (WFP/GEORGE FOMINYEN) Some 50 women were kidnapped between last Thursday and Friday in northern Burkina Faso by members of an armed group. The women were kidnapped after traveling ten kilometers from the town of Arbinda to collect leaves and wild fruits to eat, a desperate option given the serious humanitarian crisis that this regi


Women farmers in Burkina Faso in October 2019.WFP/GEORGE FOMINYEN (WFP/GEORGE FOMINYEN)

Some 50 women were kidnapped between last Thursday and Friday in northern Burkina Faso by members of an armed group.

The women were kidnapped after traveling ten kilometers from the town of Arbinda to collect leaves and wild fruits to eat, a desperate option given the serious humanitarian crisis that this region is going through due to jihadist violence, according to different local sources told France Press .

About ten women were able to escape from their captors and told the neighbors that their companions had been kidnapped.

A first group of about 40 women from Arbinda left this town, located in the province of Soum, on Thursday morning aboard carts.

However, ten kilometers southeast of the town, they ran into members of an armed group who kidnapped them.

Since they did not return, their relatives began to worry until three of them who were able to escape told what had happened.

On Friday morning, another group of about 20 women who were unaware of what had happened and were located about five miles north of Arbinda suffered the same fate.

The Army has tried to locate them so far without success, according to the same sources.

More than half of Burkina Faso, especially the rural areas of the northern and eastern regions, is under constant siege by the jihadist insurgency, in particular from local cells linked to the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM). , for its acronym in Arabic), such as Ansarul Islam, and the Islamic State.

The constant violence of the radicals, which has caused the flight of some two million people from their homes, prevents the normal development of agriculture, livestock and commerce, which has generated a serious humanitarian crisis.

Numerous towns are surrounded by the jihadists.

This weekend, thousands of people demonstrated in various Burkinabe towns in the center and north of the country, such as Ouahigouya, Kaya, Sourou and Sanguié, to protest the deterioration in security.

One of the latest incidents that shows the seriousness of the situation took place last Wednesday, when several armed men stormed a mosque belonging to the Ahmadi branch of Islam in the town of Mahdiabad, some 45 kilometers from Dori, killing nine people. , including the imam, according to the Ahmadiyya community in a statement.

The military junta that has ruled Burkina Faso since last October, headed by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, has so far been incapable of dealing with this violence.

After the coup that brought him to power, Captain Traoré assured that his priority was "the reconquest of the territory occupied by hordes of terrorists."

To this end, the Burkinabe government appealed to the civilian population to recruit 50,000 young people as members of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP), a group of armed civilians under the umbrella of the Army that has become the first line of defense against jihadists in rural areas.

By the end of November, some 90,000 young people had applied.

In parallel, the military junta has brought positions closer to Russia, which is emerging as the new great international ally of Burkina Faso in its fight against jihadism to the detriment of France.

On December 7, the Prime Minister, Kyélem Apollinaire de Tambèla, discreetly traveled to Moscow where he held a meeting with Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, for "a reinforcement of relations" between the two countries, according to a statement. from Bogdanov himself.

The shadow of the arrival of mercenaries from the Wagner company in Burkina Faso, as happened in neighboring Mali at the end of 2021, hangs over this agreement.

On January 9, Alexey Saltikov, Russian ambassador to the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, assured that Moscow and Ouagadougou are going to draw up a collaboration roadmap that will include defense and security issues, all after meeting with Olivia Ragnaghnewendé Rouamba, Burkinabe's Minister of Foreign Affairs, according to the Burkina Faso Information Agency (AIB).

The following day, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, the French Secretary of State, met with Captain Traoré to express the Elysée's intention to maintain its military support.

Relations between Paris and Ouagadougou have been deteriorating: the Burkinabe authorities have requested the replacement of the ambassador, Luc Hallade, and have suspended the broadcasting of Radio France International throughout the country.

Jihadist activity began in 2015 in Burkina Faso imported from neighboring Mali.

The attacks in Ouagadougou in January 2016, which caused 30 deaths, and the birth of the local group Ansarul Islam in November of the same year in the north of the country were the two key moments of an insurgency that in eight years has caused more than 10,000 deaths. and some two million internally displaced persons.

Jihadism has been spreading throughout practically the entire country and currently operates even beyond the borders of the countries located to the south, such as Benin, Togo and the Ivory Coast.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-16

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