Armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) have stepped up attacks on civilians in Burkina Faso, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The report, released on Wednesday, highlights the killing of at least 128 civilians in seven attacks by these groups since February 2024. These actions are classified as violations of international humanitarian law and are considered war crimes.
The attacks have targeted villagers, displaced people, and Christian worshippers, with one particularly gruesome incident involving an ISIL attack on a church in Essakane, close to Niger, in February, killing at least 12 people. The attack was reportedly in retaliation against Christians who refused to give up their faith.
Burkina Faso, under the military leadership of Ibrahim Traore, has been struggling with an insurgency by ISIL in the Greater Sahara and al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) since these groups spread into the country from Mali in 2016. Traore’s government has encouraged civilians to join the fight, recruiting volunteer auxiliaries and even forcing some civilians to dig defensive trenches.
HRW’s report includes numerous witness accounts of these atrocities, citing a particularly deadly JNIM attack in June on an army base near Niger, which resulted in the deaths of 107 soldiers and 20 civilians. Another JNIM attack in August killed as many as 400 civilians as they worked on defensive trenches near the town of Barsalogho.
The violence has taken a significant toll, with more than 26,000 people killed in Burkina Faso since 2016, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.