Thursday, October 24, 2024
Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Armed jihadist groups in Burkina Faso have stepped up their attacks on civilians in recent months, “massacring villagers, displaced persons and Christian worshippers”, denounced Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday September 18 in a report accompanied by appalling eyewitness accounts.
“The assailants were firing randomly everywhere, I saw dozens of bodies”, told HRW a woman who survived an attack in May that left at least 80 people dead and almost 40 wounded in a camp for displaced persons in Goubré (north).
Door-to-door” executions, throat-cutting, dismembered bodies, rape of women… On ten pages, the international human rights organization details the atrocities committed by armed groups against civilians in this Sahelian country since the beginning of the year.
Quoted in the report, the organization Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), which catalogues conflict victims around the world, says it has counted more than 26,000 people killed – military, militia and civilians combined – in Burkina Faso since the conflict began in 2016.
In the first eight months of the year alone, ACLED counts “more than 6,000” dead, including around 1,000 civilians killed by “Islamist armed groups”.
HRW points out that “these figures do not include the 100 to 400 civilians killed in the August 24 attack” in Barsalogho, in the center of the country.
In Niamana, in the far west of the country, a resident recalls: “We are caught between a rock and a hard place: on the one hand, the authorities are pushing us to return to villages where security is not guaranteed; on the other, the jihadists attack us when we return to our fields and homes”.
The al-Qaeda-affiliated Groupe de soutien à l’islam et aux musulmans (GSIM) “operates in 11 of the 13 regions” of the country, according to Acled, and regularly commits attacks in neighboring Niger and Mali – as in Bamako, the Malian capital, where it claimed responsibility on Tuesday September 18 for a double attack on the military airport and a gendarmerie camp.
While this new HRW report shows that Islamist armed groups in Burkina Faso have stepped up their attacks on civilians (villagers, displaced persons, Christian faithful, etc.) in violation of international humanitarian law and constituting war crimes, it also highlights the challenges facing African regional responses to the violence in the country and throughout the Sahel region.
The African Union (AU), including its Peace and Security Council, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), have not sufficiently addressed the abuses perpetrated in the conflict, improved the protection of civilians or sought justice for the abuses committed.
In July 2023, a delegation from the AU Council visited Burkina Faso, pledging to step up the Union’s humanitarian support to the country. However, the Council did not address impunity as a key factor in abuses, nor did it do more to protect civilians or hold to account those responsible for serious violations.
The ACHPR held four sessions between August 2023 and June 2024 without sufficiently discussing the human rights situation in Burkina Faso, despite ample evidence of serious violations.
“The AU Peace and Security Council should address the resurgence of atrocities in Burkina Faso and the deteriorating situation in the country,” concluded Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights should investigate ongoing abuses and propose relevant options for establishing accountability.”
Humaniterre
Sources : Human Right Watch / AFP
www.hrw.org
https://www.hrw.org/fr/news/2024/09/18/burkina-faso-des-groupes-armes-islamistes-terrorisent-les-civils
