Burkina Faso: Fragile borders externally and terrorism raging inside

Ahmed Adel

Terrorists in Burkina Faso took advantage of the poor conditions in the country after protests broke out in the capital Ouagadougou.

Terrorists launched an attack on the population of Bobby Minghao village, located in the Som region, north of Burkina Faso, killing at least 15 civilians. Large numbers of villagers fled to Djibo, the provincial capital, 25 kilometers from the village.

A security source confirmed that the bodies of 11 people were found on the road linking the villages of Bobby Minghao and Beitelbongo, likely assuming that the bodies belong to the residents of a village kidnapped by terrorists hours earlier.

The security source did not disclose any further details, he said, adding that they have found four more bodies in a nearby area, from which the same armed terrorist group, which is terrorizing the local population, has passed, forcing them to flee their villages towards the cities.

According to Agence France-Presse, demonstrations swept Burkina Faso on Saturday 26 October 2019, where more than 10,000 people demonstrated in the capital Ouagadougou in support of the defense and security forces, which have been facing terrorist attacks since 2015.

The demonstrators held up banners reading “Let us fight the forces of evil together. Let us expel the terrorists outside Burkina Faso, united in diversity by confronting all adversity, people, army, and a sure victory.” They fell in Burkina Faso.

“We organized this large gathering so that together, without ethnic, political or religious discrimination, we can support our defense and security forces in the fight against terrorism,” said Emmanuel Kapoori, chairman of the organizing committee.

The northern region of Burkina Faso is one of the hotbeds of terrorism in the Sahel-Saharan region, where al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists are active, taking advantage of the deteriorating security situation and benefiting from the freedom to move freely between neighboring countries such as Mali and Niger. This is because of armed attacks, as well as intercommunal conflicts, which are often fueled by armed violence by extremist organizations.

Tug of war between Al Qaeda and ISIS

In a statement to the Reference, Dr. Amira Abdel Halim, researcher on African affairs at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies said that the armed organizations are trying to exploit the volatile situation in the country, and the concern of the Burkian security forces of escalating the pace of demonstrations.

Amira stressed that there is a state of tension between Al-Qaeda and ISIS in the current period, and this competition has created a large case of the spread of armed organizations, and then the high frequency of terrorism in the Sahel and the Sahara as a whole.