Month: January 2023

A group of women who were abducted on Thursday and Friday in the north of the country by suspected jihadists are being searched for in Burkina Faso, the governor of the Sahel region said in a statement on Monday.

“As soon as their disappearance was reported, searches were undertaken to find all of these innocent victims, safe and sound,” said Lieutenant Colonel Rodolphe Sorgho.

“All means are being implemented, on the ground and air to find these women,” a security source told Africanewsguru.com, assuring that “aircraft are flying over the area to detect any suspicious movement.

Some fifty women were abducted on Thursday and Friday by suspected jihadists in two localities to the north and west of the northern town of Arbinda, Sorgho said.

“While they were out looking for wild fruits, these wives, mothers and daughters were unjustly attacked by armed men,” he added.

“We think the kidnappers took them to their different bases,” a resident of Arbinda told Africanewsguru.com on Sunday.

“This is the first mass kidnapping since the beginning of the security crisis and it will be necessary to manage this situation well to avoid any drama or a recurrence,” said a senior officer close to the general staff.

France condemned the kidnapping “in the strongest possible terms” and called for their “immediate release”.

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris reaffirmed “its solidarity and its commitment to Burkina Faso”.

The commune of Arbinda is located in the Sahel region, an area under blockade by jihadist groups and which is difficult to supply with food.

Nearly one million people are currently living in blockaded areas in the north and east of the country, according to the United Nations.

Burkina Faso, particularly in its northern half, has faced increasing attacks by jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State since 2015. They have left thousands dead and at least two million displaced.

Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the transitional president who emerged from a military coup on September 30 – the second in eight months – has set himself the goal of “recapturing the territory occupied by these terrorist hordes.”

The United States accused Russian military contractors backed by the Kremlin on Tuesday of interfering in the internal affairs of African countries and “increasing the likelihood that violent extremism will grow” in the Sahel region which is facing increasing attacks and deteriorating security — an allegation Russia denied.

U.S. deputy ambassador Richard Mills lashed out at the Wagner Group at a U.N. Security Council meeting on West Africa and the Sahel, accusing its paramilitary forces of failing to address the extremist threat, robbing countries of their resources, committing human rights abuses, and endangering the safety and security of U.N. peacekeepers and staff.

France’s political counsellor Isis Jaraud-Darnault echoed Mills, saying “the model” used by Wagner mercenaries has proven “totally ineffective in combating terrorism.” He cited the “nefarious” and devastating impact of its work and human rights violations, including the alleged killing of over 30 civilians in Mali, and its pillaging of natural resources.

Britain’s deputy U.N. ambassador James Kariuki cited the deterioration of security, especially in Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin, and the fear of instability spreading to West African coastal countries. “You cannot ignore the destabilizing role the Wagner Group plays in the region. They are part of the problem, not the solution,” he told the council.

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva rejected attempts “to besmirch Russian assistance to Mali,” where Moscow has a bilateral agreement to assist the transitional government, “and in other countries in Africa.”

“Some countries once again today declared that Russia apparently is pillaging and looting the resources of Africa and is facilitating the growth of the terrorist threat,” she said, accusing those unnamed nations of doing the same thing “throughout the world and in Africa”, especially in neighbouring Libya which destabilized the entire area.

“Accusations against Russia are just astonishing, given common sense,” and undermine African leaders trying to resolve their own problems and decide who they want to cooperate with, she said.

Evstigneeva never mentioned the Wagner Group by name. The group is run by a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and its mercenaries are accused by Western countries and U.N. experts of numerous human rights cases of abuse throughout Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali.

Giovanie Biha, the deputy head of the U.N. Office for West Africa and the Sahel, told the council that “insecurity has again deteriorated in large parts of the region,” due to activities of armed groups, violent extremists and criminal networks.

As a result, she said, more than 10,000 schools across the Sahel have closed, leaving millions of children without an education, and nearly 7,000 health centres have shut down.

Armed groups are fighting for supremacy and control of resources, she said, and the central Sahel is facing “unprecedented levels of security and humanitarian challenges, socio-political instability, further compounded by the impact of climate change, and food insecurity which was exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine.”

She added that increasing attacks in countries along the Gulf of Guinea are threatening transport arteries to landlocked countries further north.

According to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ latest report issued this week, over 18.6 million people in the region are experiencing “severe food insecurity,” an increase of 5.6 million since the end of June 2022, with Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria being the hardest hit. And about 6.3 million people are displaced across the Sahel, an increase of 300,000 since June.

West Africa’s latest wave of coups kicked off in Mali in 2020, followed by another in Guinea in 2021, and then in Burkina Faso in January 2022.

Omar Alieu Touray, president of the West African regional group ECOWAS’ commission, told the council he was pleased to report that transitions to critical elections in the three countries are “on course,” with voting to take place in the next two years.