Around 50 women were abducted in two kidnappings by suspected jihadists in the north of the country, an area under a jihadist blockade, on Thursday and Friday.
About 50 women were kidnapped by suspected jihadists in Arbinda, northern Burkina Faso, on Thursday and Friday, local officials and residents of the city, which has regularly been hit by violence, told AFP on Sunday.
According to several residents and local officials who wished to remain anonymous, a first group of about 40 women was kidnapped about 10 km southeast of Arbinda and another of about 20 the next day north of that community.
Some women managed to escape
Some managed to escape and returned to their villages to testify, about fifty did not return.
“The women have gathered to pick leaves and wild fruits in the bush because there is nothing left to eat,” explained one of the residents, adding that they left with their carts on Thursday.
“When we didn’t return them Thursday night, we thought their carts had a problem. But three survivors came back to tell us what happened,” added another resident.
According to him, the next day, eight kilometers north of Arbinda, about twenty women who had not been informed about the first abduction were themselves abducted.
“In both groups, the women managed to escape the terrorists’ vigilance and return to the village on foot,” he explained. “We believe the kidnappers took them to their various bases,” he continued.
According to local officials who confirmed the kidnappings, the army and its civilian auxiliaries searched the area without success.
An area blocked by jihadist groups
The community of Arbinda is located in the Sahel region in northern Burkina Faso, an area blocked by jihadist groups and with hardly any food supplies.
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This supply is crucial: in many parts of the country there is no agricultural production of food because the fields are inaccessible due to insecurity.
Last November, spokeswoman for a group of civil society organizations in the region, Idrissa Badini, expressed her concerns about the situation in Arbinda.
“The population, having exhausted its reserves, is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.
Thousands dead and 2 million displaced
According to the United Nations, almost a million people are currently living in blocked areas in the north or east of the country.
Arbinda and its surroundings are regularly the scene of deadly jihadist attacks, mostly targeting civilians. Two of them were particularly bloody: in August 2021, 80 people (including 65 civilians) died in the attack on the convoy that took them to Arbinda, and in December 2019, 42 people (including 35 civilians) were killed in an attack on the city .
Since 2015, Burkina Faso has faced increasing attacks from jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, particularly in its northern half. They left thousands dead and at least two million displaced.
Captain Ibrahim Traoré, interim president after a military coup on September 30 – the second in eight months – has set himself the goal of “taking back the territory occupied by these hordes of terrorists”.
Original article published on BFMTV.com
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