By Abdullahi Jimoh
Burkina Faso’s military and allied militias allegedly tortured and massacred civilians in a retaliatory attack in the country’s west, an NGO official and a local source told AFP on Thursday.
“Whole families of Fulani shepherds were killed in the bushes of Solenzo, in the Bema and Ban areas,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The death toll is believed to be in the dozens.
Videos circulating online show bloodied bodies—many of them women, children, and the elderly—strewn across the ground, some with their hands and feet bound.
In one video, men armed with rifles and knives, reportedly from local self-defense groups, are seen standing over the corpses while hurling insults. Another video shows them transporting bodies on a three-wheeled vehicle.
According to the local source, the attack followed an earlier assault in the area at the start of March. “They accused the Fulani of sheltering the terrorists responsible for the attack. Locals asked them to leave the area to avoid reprisals,” they said.
However, as the Fulani were fleeing Solenzo, they were reportedly captured by soldiers and volunteer fighters before being tortured and executed.
A human rights official who verified the videos told AFP that the massacre aligns with the military’s ongoing strategy of targeting Fulani civilians in retaliation.
Burkina Faso has been locked in a brutal insurgency for over a decade, with violence spilling over from neighbouring Mali and Niger.
Military-led governments in all three countries have vowed to crack down on insurgents, but human rights groups have accused security forces of widespread abuses.
Since 2015, the conflict has claimed more than 26,000 lives, according to conflict monitor ACLED. Over half of those deaths occurred after Burkina Faso’s September 2022 military coup. Human Rights Watch estimates that Burkina Faso’s army and its militias killed at least 1,000 civilians between January and July 2024.
Source: News Central