At least 70 people, mostly children and the elderly, died in killings in north-central Burkina Faso in early November. Massacres of civilians whose perpetrators remain unknown and for which the European Union (EU) and the United States have requested an investigation.
According to a provisional report communicated Monday, November 13 by the Faso prosecutor, Simon Gnanou, these killings perpetrated on November 5 in the village of Zaongo left 70 victims, “mainly children and the elderly.” He specifies that hearing the “relatives of the victims and the injured will make it possible to specify the exact number of deaths” and that “the perpetrators of the atrocities remain unknown for the moment”. A security source told AFP on Sunday that an investigation had been opened.
On Sunday, the EU mentioned this massacre and a possible toll of around a hundred deaths, calling on the authorities in Ouagadougou to “shed light” on it. The American government, through the head of African affairs at the State Department, Molly Phee, for its part condemned this “attack in the strongest possible terms” and requested the opening of an investigation.
“The massacre took place two days after fighting between security forces and terrorists. Zaongo was one of the few villages in the area that had not yet been emptied by terrorists. Some suspected the residents of collaborating with them,” a resident of the area, on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
An “attack” repelled
The prosecutor explained that he went to the scene on Saturday with a team composed in particular of a military investigating judge, elements of the Special Brigade for Anti-Terrorism Investigations and the Fight against Organized Crime, as well as gendarmes. He also praised the defense and security forces who “carried out mine clearance” along the route, in this area where jihadist groups operate, and repelled “an attack on the convoy”.
Since 2015, Burkina Faso has been caught in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), which has left more than 17,000 civilian and military dead. Many localities targeted by the violence have been deserted, causing more than 2 million internally displaced people.
An investigation was opened in April, after another massacre of 136 people (including 50 women and 21 children) perpetrated by men in military uniforms in Karma, in the north of the country. The president of the transition, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, then called for avoiding “hasty conclusions” and not immediately accusing the army of being responsible for this killing. Since then, no official communication has been made on the results of this investigation.
Captain Traoré, who came to power through a coup in September 2022, claims to make the anti-jihadist fight his priority. In April, he signed a one-year “general mobilization” decree, allowing if necessary the requisition of “young people aged 18 and over” to fight against jihadists. Human Rights Watch thus reported “a dozen dissidents” who were “called by security forces” and “requisitioned to participate in government security operations.”