Villages being massacred by Burkina Faso army after being accused of helping jihadists - hundreds dead including babies

 

Burkina Faso’s army summarily executed

223 civilians, says Human Rights Watch

Military forces in Burkina Faso killed 223 civilians, including babies and many children, in attacks on two villages accused of cooperating with militants, Human Rights Watch said in a report published Thursday. 

Issued on: 25/04/2024 - 07:37

2 min

By:NEWS WIRES

The mass killings took place on Feb. 25 in the country's northern villages of Nondin and Soro, and some 56 children were among the dead, according to the report. The human rights organization called on the United Nations and the African Union to provide investigators and to support local efforts to bring those responsible to justice.

“The massacres in Nondin and Soro villages are just the latest mass killings of civilians by the Burkina Faso military in their counterinsurgency operations,” Human Rights Watch Executive Director Tirana Hassan said in a statement. “International assistance is critical to support a credible investigation into possible crimes against humanity.”

The once-peaceful nation has been ravaged by violence that has pitted jihadis linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group against state-backed forces. Both sides have targeted civilians caught in the middle, displacing more than 2 million people, of which over half are children. Most attacks go unpunished and unreported in a nation run by a repressive leadership that silences perceived dissidents.

The HRW report provided a rare firsthand account of the killings by survivors amid a stark increase in civilian casualties by Burkina Faso’s security forces as the junta struggles to beat back a growing jihadi insurgency and attacks residents under the guise of counterterrorism.

Earlier in April, The Associated Press verified accounts of a Nov. 5 army attack on another village that killed at least 70 people. The details were similar — the army blamed the villagers for cooperating with militants and massacred them, even babies.

Witnesses and survivors told HRW that the Feb. 25 killings were believed to have been carried out in retaliation for an attack by Islamist fighters on a military camp near the provincial capital Ouahigouya, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) away.

The toll of civilian deaths was higher than first described by local officials. A public prosecutor previously said that his office was investigating the reported deaths of 170 people in attacks carried out on those villages.

A Burkina Faso government spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment about the Feb. 25 attack. Officials previously denied killing civilians and said jihadi fighters often disguise themselves as soldiers.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in Burkina Faso since jihadi violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group first hit the West African nation nine years ago, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a United States-based nonprofit.

Burkina Faso experienced two coups in 2022. Since seizing power in September 2022, the junta led by Capt. Ibrahim Traoré has promised to beat back militants but violence has only worsened, analysts say. Around half of Burkina Faso’s territory remains outside of government control.

Frustrated with a lack of progress over years of Western military assistance, the junta has severed military ties with former colonial ruler France and turned to Russia instead for security support. 

Russia fighting against Islam, hmmmm.

(AP)

Islam: Current Day > Burkina Faso: 58 Killed in Attacks Targeting Christians

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor| Sunday, June 07, 2020

Burkina Faso Christian Church at Tibin village near Ziniaré in the province of Oubritenga, Burkina Faso,

on October 9, 2013. | Wikimedia Commons/Martin Grandjean

At least 58 people, including children, were recently killed in northern Burkina Faso in three separate attacks by armed Islamic militants who were targeting Christians. 

Christians were among those targeted and killed in the attacks that took place in the provinces of Loroum, Kompienga and Sanmatenga within 24 hours, from May 29 to May 30, according to the U.K.-based aid agency Barnabus Fund.

The group said a local source spoke to a survivor, who said the militants targeted Christians and humanitarians taking food to a camp of internally displaced people with many Christian villagers who had fled before the violence.

Referring to an attack on a humanitarian convoy in Sanmatenga province’s Barsalogho area, which left six civilians and seven soldiers dead, the survivor said, “The driver shouted ‘forgive, forgive, we are also followers of the [Islamic] prophet Muhammad.’ One of them [among the gunmen] turned to the other attackers and said, ‘they have the same religion with us.’”

The attack subsequently ended, the charity said.

Apart from the attack in Sanmatenga, militants opened fire indiscriminately at a cattle market in Kompienga on May 30, killing at least 30 people. The day before, a convoy of traders, which included children, was attacked while traveling from Titao to Sollé in Loroum province.

Dozens were injured in the three attacks.

Last December, at least 14 people were killed when gunmen stormed a Protestant church service in the town of Hantoukoura near the border with Niger. Last April, gunmen killed a Protestant pastor and five other Christians who were leaving a worship service in Silgadji.

Burkina Faso, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, has been fighting armed groups with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State for more than four years.

Over 4,000 people were killed in Islamic extremist attacks in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali in 2019, according to the U.N.'s envoy for West Africa and the Sahel Mohamed Ibn Chambas.

Since 2016, extremist groups including the Islamic State West Africa Province and Ansaroul Islam have carried out attacks throughout the Sahel region of West Africa. But attacks increased fivefold in 2019 — deaths rose from 80 in 2016 to 1,800 in 2019.

Jihadist violence has now spread from the country’s north to the western Boucle du Mouhoun region where rice and maize are produced and transported to other areas, resulting in a food shortages and might cut off food for millions more in the region, according to The Associated Press.

It is feared that the COVID-19 pandemic might exacerbate the situation at a time when 2 million people in the country are already facing food insecurity.

“If production goes down in this area and if movement restrictions due to the coronavirus drive up food prices in the markets, it could push numbers of severely vulnerable people to double or triple,” Julia Wanjiru, communications coordinator for the Sahel and West Africa Club, an intergovernmental economic group, was quoted as saying.

According to the U.N., the number of people displaced in Burkina Faso rose 1,200 percent in 2019. There are about 600,000 internally displaced people in the country as it is becoming one of the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian crises. 

War on Christianity Most Violent in Africa - 14 Dead In Protestant Church

Gunmen kill up to 14 in Protestant church attack in Burkina Faso

FILE PHOTO: Soldiers from Burkina Faso patrol on the road of Gorgadji in the Sahel area of Burkina Faso.

© Reuters / Luc Gnago

A Protestant church has been attacked by unidentified gunmen in the West African nation of Burkina Faso, according to media reports citing security sources. Some 14 people are feared dead in the wake of the massacre.

The incident reportedly occurred in the commune of Hantoukoura, located in the east of the country close to its border with Niger, late on Sunday, yet there’s no official word on it.

The church was attacked by unknown assailants while a congregation attended a service. The assault left 10 to 14 people dead, according to various media reports.

Africa’s Maghreb and Sahel regions have been enduring an Islamist insurgency for nearly two decades already. The situation in Burkina Faso began rapidly deteriorating about four years ago, as violence spilled over from the neighboring states. It has stirred up ethnic and religious tensions across the country, especially in its northern regions bordering Mali.

2019 has been particularly violent, with a surge in terrorist attacks and sectarian violence. The majority of attacks in Burkina Faso have been attributed to the Ansar-ul-Islam and JNIM (Group in Support of Islam and Muslims) militant jihadist groups. The Islamists have previously targeted Christians, as well as Muslims who are considered not hardline enough.

19 Killed by Gunmen in Burkina Faso: 'There's No Christian Anymore in this Town'

This is Islam's ultimate goal - for the whole world!

This is Genocide - Islam's War on Christianity

And in the Sahel, they are winning

Bottles of water are seen in front of Cappuccino restaurant after an attack on the restaurant and the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, January 18, 2016. | (Photo: Reuters/Joe Penney)

Dozens of armed unidentified gunmen killed at least 19 and injured 13 others in northern Burkina Faso on Sunday. 

A local government official told AFP on the condition of anonymity that the attack occurred between 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and that 19 bodies were found at the time. The official said a search was underway to find others who were killed.

Hours before the gunmen attacked, the source said the gunmen stopped three vehicles in the town of Arbinda and set them on fire. The official detailed that one of the drivers was killed.

4 million people displaced

The killing in Arbinda comes as armed groups have spread across the Shael (Sahel?) region and committed atrocities in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. The United Nations reports that the violence has led to the displacement of at least 4.2 million people, 1 million more than in 2018.

In Burkina Faso, innocent lives are being lost due to the rise of jihadist attacks and government counterterror operations.

In April, more than 60 people were killed in an attack in Arbinda which has been hit hard by violence.

“There is no Christian anymore in this town [Arbinda],” an anonymous contact told the Christian aid charity Barnabus Fund. “It's proven that they were looking for Christians. Families who hide Christians are killed. Arbinda had now lost a total of no less than 100 people within six months.”

Since 2016, armed Islamist groups linked to both al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Islamic State in Greater Sahara have been attacking civilian targets, police stations and military posts in Burkina Faso, according to Human Rights Watch. 

Although the violence has spread throughout the country, the “epicenter” of the violence sits in the northern Sahel, a region that borders Mali and Niger.

Contacts told Barnabus Fund that as many as 82 pastors, 1,145 Christians and 151 households have fled from violence in different locations in the Muslim-majority nation.

In April, a pastor and five churchgoers were killed in the town of Silgadji in the northern part of the country. At the time it was believed that the Silgadji church attack was the first to target a church in Burkina Faso, a nation where Muslims and Christians largely have coexisted. 

But in May, a Catholic church was attacked in the northern town of Dablo, where gunmen also killed a pastor and five churchgoers, some of whom were church elders.

Additionally, extremists in Dablo set fire to the church and a nearby cafe. They also attacked a local health center and burned a nurse’s car.

Also in May, four Catholics were killed during a procession with a statue of the Virgin Mary in the northern municipality of Zimtenga in the country’s Bam province.

Witnesses said that extremists killed civilians because of suspected ties to the government or for supporting the idea of forming self-defense groups, according to Human Rights Watch.

One villager told HRW about an extremist attack carried out in the village of Gasseliki that left 12 people dead in January.

“They kicked the door in, went room to room and found us hiding,” the villager was quoted as saying. “Then they opened fire in a hail of bullets killing three men.”

Another witness told HRW about an attack that killed nine men in Sikiré village.

“People are dominated by fear,” the witness said. “No man over 18 dares sleep in his house anymore for fear of being kidnapped or worse.”

Others told HRW that the extremists are damaging the livelihood of entire villages through the large-scale looting of livestock.

The Christian aid organization Open Doors U.K. reports that many pastors and their families have been kidnapped and remain in captivity while over 200 churches have closed in northern Burkina Faso to avoid more attacks on worship services.

“This is the biggest shock of our lives as Christians. Never in our wildest imagination did we think this would happen and that today we would be left at the mercy of other believers in safer areas,” Pastor Daniel Sawadogo told Open Doors. “We have left everything we labored for. Our children have been pushed out of school. Some of our men have been killed without provocation.”

In addition to the extremist attacks, witnesses told HRW about crimes committed by Burkina Faso security forces, including the execution of 116 men accused of supporting or harboring the armed jihadis.

HRW reports that about 100 armed gendarmes officers were dispatched to Arbinda in August.

“We are witnessing an unprecedented humanitarian emergency in Burkina Faso where an upsurge in armed attacks has caused massive internal displacement," Ursula Mueller, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and deputy emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement issued after a visit to Burkina Faso in March.

"Thousands of families, young children, men, and women are surviving in utterly difficult conditions, some in overcrowded tents, and without enough food, water or medical attention. It is critical that we step up the ongoing emergency assistance in Burkina Faso and increase efforts in the Sahel in general where growing insecurity directly generates a rapid deterioration in the humanitarian situation.”

A state of emergency has been declared in several regions in Burkina Faso.

6 Killed in Gunman Attack on Catholic Church in Burkina Faso

This week's battle in the War on Christianity - Islam, Burkina Faso

A Burkina Faso police officer stands guard, FILE PHOTO: © AFP / Issouf Sanogo

Six people, including a priest, have been killed in an attack on a Catholic church in Dablo, Burkina Faso after attackers opened fire as people prayed at Sunday mass.

"Towards 9.00 am, during mass, armed individuals burst into the Catholic Church," the mayor of Dablo, Ousmane Zongo, told AFP. "They started firing as the congregation tried to flee."

Dablo is a village located 90km from Kaya in the north-central part of the country.

The attack is the first on a Catholic church since terrorist attacks began in the country in 2015. Over 350 people have been killed in the raids which have been attributed to a number of jihadist groups, including the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and the Ansarul Islam group.

Ansar ul Islam is a militant Islamist group active in Burkina Faso and in Mali. Ansar ul Islam is the Ansar Dine branch in Burkina Faso. 

Ansar Dine, also known as Ansar al-Din ("defenders of the faith") is a militant Islamist group led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, one of the most prominent leaders of the Tuareg Rebellion (1990–1995) who is suspected of having ties to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is led by his cousin Hamada Ag Hama. Ansar Dine seeks to impose strict Sharia law across Mali.

Wikipedia.

On April 29, gunmen attacked a Protestant church, killing a pastor and four worshippers in Silgadji near Djibo, which was the first attack on a church, France 24 reports.

Muslim and Christian clerics have been targeted by the groups. In February, a Spanish Catholic priest was killed in a raid in Nohao in the center of the country.

So, from murdering a priest in February to massacres in churches in April and May with increasing numbers of casualties, shows a clear progression. Sin is progressive! This will get worse before it gets better without dramatic action.

On the other hand, while Islam may celebrate the murder of 11 Christians this year in Burkina Faso, it's a good bet those martyrs went straight into the presence of Jesus Christ and were welcomed with open arms. While their murderers are flagged for judgment to stand before that same Christ. No Paradise; no virgins; just judgment, then Hell. Poor fools! They've lost and they think they've won.

Islamic Terrorists in Burkina Faso Execute Six at Pentecostal Church

Today's Assault in the War on Christianity

Assemblies of God pastor preferred to “die for his faith rather than leave the village” he served for decades.

KATE SHELLNUTT , CT

Security forces guard the armed forces building in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The country has suffered hundreds of terrorist attacks amid rising extremism since 2016, including its first church attack this week. Image: Ludivine Laniepce / AP

Christians in Burkina Faso are mourning a deadly attack on a Protestant church as “a new turning point in terrorism” in the West African nation.

Sunday’s shooting at an Assemblies of God congregation in a northern village left six people dead, including the pastor, and represents the first church attack among the recent surge of Islamist violence.

Evangelism - Islam style

A dozen gunmen on motorcycles stormed the courtyard of the Sirgadji church after worship, fatally shooting its longtime pastor as well as five other congregants after demanding they convert to Islam, according to a statement sent to CT by the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Burkina Faso, Michel Ouédraogo. The attackers also stole from the church and burned its pulpit.

The church was one of the oldest Protestant congregations in the region, which borders Mali to the north, and pastor Pierre Ouédraogo had served there since its founding in the 1980s. The longtime pastor had sensed danger, but told family members “he prefers to die for his faith rather than leave the village where he has served for nearly 40 years,” said his son-in-law, according to the AG statement.

His testimony “shows the commitment that Pastor Pierre Ouédraogo had for the ministry,” Michel Ouédraogo told CT. “His family and members of the church are shocked, and naturally live in fear. However, we firmly believe that God will comfort them in these moments of pain.”

Martyred pastor Pierre Ouédraogo

Image: World Watch Monitor

The victims include the pastor’s son and his son-in-law, who served as a deacon in the church. In response, “more than 100 Christians already have left for more secure towns further south, such as Kongoussi, over 75 kilometers away,” reports World Watch Monitor (WWM).

“It’s not only the church of Sirgadji that has been attacked; all the values of tolerance, forgiveness, and love that have always led our country have been hurt,” said Henri Yé, president of the Federation of Evangelical Churches and Missions in Burkina Faso (FEME), in an April 30 statement. “The freedom of worship consecrated by our fundamental law [the Constitution] has been flouted.”

“In the face of blind hatred, let us ask God to give us the strength to spread love, which makes us the children of God,” stated Yé. “The unity of the body of Christ and of the whole nation must be preserved at all costs.”

WWM noted he also called on “Christian organizations to be involved in the search for peace, through prayers and training of Burkinabe youth, in order to involve all sections of the population in the quest for social cohesion and better communal living.”

Ouédraogo, whose denomination includes 4,000 local churches across Burkina Faso, has urged Christians to remember the Romans 12:18 call to live at peace with everyone.

“Revenge has never been a good solution,” the AG leader told CT. “Besides, the God we serve is LOVE. He invites us to love our neighbor. The world is bad, and the church must play its full role. Let us be sentinels, and God will do the rest to the glory of His holy name, even in difficult moments.”

FEME president Henri Yé speaks at a press conference in the capital, Ouagadougou.

Image: FEME c/o World Watch Monitor

Burkina Faso declared a state of emergency in some of its northern provinces last year, due to ongoing violence. The church attack comes days after another half-dozen people were killed by assailants elsewhere in the country. Islamists have been blamed for the abductions of a Spanish Catholic priest and a Canadian geologist earlier this year.

After 200 attacks over the past three years, the government considers Sunday’s shooting to be the first at a house of worship, a sign that the violence could be shifting from indiscriminate to targeted. Burkina Faso is about 60 percent Muslim and about 25 percent Christian (around 20 percent Catholic and 5 percent Protestant).

According to Ouédraogo, a fellow Assemblies of God pastor had been taken hostage along with his church members in the northern part of Burkina Faso last year. The AG leader has urged Christians to maintain their relationships with Muslim neighbors, and commends the neighboring Muslim communities for their efforts to support the church of Sirgadji as they buried the victims of Sunday’s attack.

An op-ed in L’Observateur Paalga suggested that pastors will begin to fear their public worship gatherings could become targets. “Evidently, the forces of Evil who are imposing their dirty war on us, and who know … where it hurts, now want to set religions against each other in a country where, nevertheless, peaceful coexistence between the different religions has always been the bedrock of social cohesion,” read an English translation of the article.

Of course, this is the nature of Islam. Radicalism is inevitable, followed immediately by violence and intolerance.

Pope Francis offered prayers for the entire Christian community in Burkina Faso after the Assemblies of God attack.

The country has faced a growing threat of terrorist violence ever since 2016, when al-Qaeda affiliates took hostages and went on a shooting spree in the capital city of Ouagadougou. Seven missionaries were killed in the incident.

Also, there was a similar massacre in August 2017 in Ouagadougou. Al-Queda was blamed for that one.

And just 2 days ago in Nigeria, Scores were massacred as an entire Christian village was destroyed by Fulani Herdsmen. Mainstream media has completely ignored it and very few people have even bothered to read my blog post. Curious, since most of my readers are Christians, and in this 21st century with global news and internet - everyone is our neighbour.

The incidents in Burkina Faso in recent years have been attributed to Ansarul Islam, the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, and the Islamic State of the Great Sahara (EIGS). 

WWM offers more context on the unrest.

He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.

17 Dead, Several Wounded in Burkina Faso Shooting, Al Queda Blamed

By Ray Downs  

Police tape cordons the area around of a terrorist attack at the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso, January 16, 2016. On August 13, armed gunmen attack a restaurant and a hotel

in the area, killing at least 17 people. File photo by Wouter Elsen/EPA

UPI -- Seventeen people were killed and nine others wounded after assailants attacked a cafe in Burkina Faso Sunday night, according to media reports.

The attack occurred at the Hotel Bravia and the Aziz Istanbul Restaurant in the capital of Ouagadougou, near the city's popular Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, reported the BBC.

Burkina Faso's Communication Minister Remis Dandjinou said it was unclear how many attackers participated in the shooting as they have not yet been apprehended.

"They are confined to one part of the building they attacked. Security and elite forces are conducting an operation," he said.

Witness reports indicate there were three shooters.

Police have closed off the city center and the U.S. embassy warned U.S. citizens to avoid the area.

The attack appears to be similar to the January 2016 attack in which masked gunmen stormed a four-star hotel catering to Westerners in Ouagadougou and killed 30 people, including many foreigners.

Al-Queda took responsibility for that attack, citing "revenge against France and the disbelieving West" as their motive.