COUNTRY PROFILE BURKINA FASO
Central Sahel – including Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger – is one of the hotbeds of jihadist activity in Africa, 26 having experienced a rapid escalation of extremist violence since the rise of Daesh (ISIS) in 2015. 27 A series of coups d’état has caused the security situation to deteriorate even more drastically over the past few years, leading to ever-expanding armed conflict and extreme poverty. 28 Jihadists have increasingly used children as soldiers. 29 Women and girls in the region suffer some of the highest rates of violence in the world, including child sexual abuse and forced marriage. 30 Terrorist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and Daesh control more than 40 percent of Burkina Faso’s territory – including vast rural areas, as well as some towns in the north and east of the country. 31 More than two million people – about 10 percent of the country’s population – have been displaced because of the ongoing armed conflict. 32 Extremist activity is concentrated in areas with a strong Fulani presence. Jihadist militias are composed of fighters of Fulani ethnicity, but not all Fulani are terrorists. Apart from religious differences, other factors driving the violence include conflict over land, ethnic tensions, and widespread poverty. 33 Attacks by Islamist groups have affected various faith groups, including mainstream Muslims. 34 However, according to Bishop Justin Kientega of Ouahigouya, Christians are particularly targeted by jihadists and face harsher control and more severe punishment than their Muslim neighbors. “There is no freedom to worship. In some villages, they allow people to pray, but forbid catechism; in other places, they tell the Christians not to gather in the church to pray.” 35 Terrorists also murdered two Christian school children. 36
SELECTED INCIDENTS MAY 2023 Jihadists began targeting the Christian population in Kompienga Province, east Burkina Faso, around Pentecost (May 28 th ) 2023. When a group of Christian women attempted to break through the blockade imposed by the militants, many of them were held captive and repeatedly raped. Some of the women were held as sex slaves for several weeks before being returned to their village pregnant. 37 NOVEMBER 2023 Extremists expelled more than 340 Christians from Débé village in north-west Burkina Faso. 38 The terrorists murdered two teenagers for flouting their ban on attending school, before giving the rest of the Christian community a 72-hour ultimatum to leave. This is one of the first known examples of Christians in the country being separated from other faith groups and forced out of their homes. 39 FEBRUARY 2024 Fifteen worshipers died and two were injured in an attack by suspected Islamist militants during Sunday prayers on February 25 th , inside a Catholic church in Essakane, in northeast Burkina Faso. Twelve of the victims were killed instantly, while three others later succumbed to their injuries in the hospital. 40 APRIL 2024 Edouard Zoetyenga Yougbare, a Catholic catechist for 20 years, was abducted and killed by suspected Fulani terrorists on Thursday, April 18 th , near Saatenga, in southeast Burkina Faso, while searching for his donkey. His lifeless body was discovered on the morning of the 19 th . 41
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