Many of the women had been picking fruit ‘because there is nothing left to eat’ as long-running insurgency hits food supplies
Suspected jihadists have abducted about 50 women in insurgency-wracked northern Burkina Faso, local officials and residents say.
Roughly 40 were seized around 12km (seven miles) south-east of Arbinda on Thursday and about 20 others were abducted on Friday to the north of the town, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
Continue reading...Volker Türk says investigation launched by government into deaths in mainly Fulani and Muslim area should be rapid and open
The head of the United Nations human rights office has called for a prompt, transparent investigation into the deaths of at least 28 people whose bodies were found in north-west Burkina Faso last month.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said it was encouraging that authorities had announced an investigation into the incident in Nouna town, a predominately ethnic Fulani and Muslim community.
Continue reading...Dmitry Sytii under US sanctions for links to mercenary group founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is close to Vladimir Putin
A Russian businessman believed to be a close ally of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group founder, has been taken to hospital in Central African Republic (CAR) after an “assassination attempt”, the RIA Novosti news agency has reported, citing the local Russian embassy.
Dmitry Sytii, who officially works as head of the “Russian House” culture centre in CAR’s capital, Bangui, had sanctions imposed on him by the US in September 2020 for his alleged links to Wagner Group, a private military group that has deployed more than 1,000 fighters in the unstable country to fight rebels.
Continue reading...North Africa analysts believe new leader Ibrahim Traoré may seek help from Moscow in fight against Islamic extremists
Russian mercenaries may be poised for further expansion in Africa’s strategically important Sahel region after the latest coup d’etat in the region, western officials and analysts fear.
Ibrahim Traoré, a 34-year-old army captain, took power in Burkina Faso on Friday, overthrowing Lt Col Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, whom he accused of failing to effectively counter rising violence by Islamic extremists in the unstable and poverty-stricken country.
Continue reading...West African bloc said country’s second military coup in nine months was ‘inappropriate’
Gunshots rang out in Burkina Faso’s capital amid signs of lingering tensions a day after a group of military officers overthrew the man who had seized power in a coup only nine months earlier.
Roads remained blocked off in Ouagadougou, where a helicopter could be heard flying overhead. An internal security analysis for the EU seen by the Associated Press said there was “abnormal military movement” in the city.
Continue reading...Army officer Captain Ibrahim Traore has overthrown Paul-Henri Damiba, eight months after he took power
Members of Burkina Faso’s army have seized control of state television, declaring that they had ousted military leader Paul-Henri Damiba, dissolved the government and suspended the constitution and transitional charter.
In a statement read on national television late on Friday, Captain Ibrahim Traore said a group of officers had decided to remove Damiba due to his inability to deal with a worsening Islamist insurgency. He announced that borders were closed indefinitely and that all political and civil society activities were suspended.
Continue reading...Chance to eradicate diseases such as malaria could be lost and UK innovation squandered if global health investment is cut, jab co-creator tells PM
The co-inventor of a groundbreaking vaccine that could eradicate malaria has implored Liz Truss not to squander cutting-edge UK innovation by “turning off the taps” on global health funding.
Speaking as successful results from the latest trials of the R21 vaccine were revealed, Prof Adrian Hill, director of Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, said it would be tragic if Britain cut funding just as scientists were poised to make “a real impact” against malaria.
Continue reading...Governor of the Sahel region in restive north says military-led convoy carrying supplies was hit by improvised explosive device
At least 35 civilians have been killed and 37 wounded when a convoy carrying supplies in Burkina Faso’s jihadist-hit north struck an improvised explosive device, the governor of the Sahel region has said.
The landlocked African state is in the grip of a seven-year insurgency that has claimed more than 2,000 lives and forced 1.9 million people to leave their homes.
Continue reading...Mounting violence in the north of the country linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group
Gunmen killed at least 55 people over the weekend in northern Burkina Faso, in the latest attack in the west African country, which is seeing mounting violence blamed on Islamic extremists.
Suspected militants targeted civilians in Seytenga in Séno province, government spokesman Wendkouni Joel Lionel Bilgo said at a news conference. While the government put the official toll at 55, others put the figure far higher, with some saying as many as 100 had died.
Continue reading...Blaise Compaoré sentenced to life imprisonment at military tribunal over role in 1987 killing of Thomas Sankara
Burkina Faso’s former president Blaise Compaoré has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of complicity in the 1987 murder of his predecessor Thomas Sankara, concluding a landmark trial and a decades-long quest for justice.
Sankara, a Marxist icon of pan-Africanism hailed across Africa and beyond, was gunned down along with 12 colleagues in the west African nation’s capital, Ouagadougou, at the age of 37, four years after he took power in a coup.
Continue reading...Just days after January’s coup d’état, Sunday horse racing goes ahead at the hippodrome on the outskirts of Ouagadougou. People gather around the dusty circuit betting with what little cash they have to spare. Photographer Guy Peterson reports
Continue reading...With Russian mercenaries invited to Mali as European forces withdraw, how worried should the west be about Russia’s increasing influence across Africa?
Even in the turbulent, conflict-wracked Sahel region of Africa, the recent military takeover in Burkina Faso was intriguing. Amid the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation, the decision by neighbouring Mali’s military-led government to invite fighters from the Wagner Group, widely seen as a paramilitary network of mercenaries with Russian connections, is causing growing concern in many western capitals.
Mali’s transitional government faces a rough road to recognition after the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) announced a strengthening of economic and diplomatic sanctions in January in response to the proposal to postpone elections until at least 2026.
Continue reading...Mutiny follows public protests calling for Roch Marc Kaboré to resign over handling of jihadist threat
Burkina Faso’s president, Roch Marc Kaboré, has been arrested and detained by soldiers, according to local reports, in a coup attempt following heavy gunfire heard around his home in the capital, Ouagadougou, on Sunday night.
On Monday morning, armoured vehicles belonging to his presidential guard were seen covered in bullets and the seats soaked in blood, near the president’s residence.
Continue reading...The killings come amid escalating violence in the region, where a four-year Islamist insurgency has resulted in thousands of deaths
Authorities in Burkina Faso have declared a two-day period of mourning after suspected militants killed at least 41 members of a government-backed civilian militia in the country’s desert north this week.
A column of civilian fighters from the homeland defence volunteers (VDP), a group the government funds and trains to contain Islamist insurgents, was ambushed on Thursday as it swept a remote area in the northern Loroum province, authorities said on Saturday.
Continue reading...A storm took the roof off Binta Bah’s house before torrential rain destroyed her family’s belongings, as poverty combines with the climate crisis to wreak havoc on Africa’s smallest mainland country
The windstorm arrived in Jalambang late in the evening, when Binta Bah and her family were enjoying the evening cool outside. “But when we first heard the wind, the kids started to run and go in the house,” she says.
First they went in one room but the roof – a sheet of corrugated iron fixed only by a timbere pole – flew off. They ran into another but the roof soon went there too.
Continue reading...This little known and preventable disease disfigures those it does not kill – and a new campaign hopes to raise awareness and eradicate it entirely
Warning: this article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbing
Fidel Strub was three when the inside of his cheek started to itch. After a few days, it felt like it was burning, then it began to smell as if it was rotting. A splitting headache came next before his whole body started to feel uncomfortably hot.
“I remember darkness came,” he says. “I had a hammering headache and a burning body. When I opened my eyes, any light stung them and it burned like hell. It was easier to close my eyes for less pain. I could do nothing but lie on the floor.”
Continue reading...Hundreds of millions of children fell behind around the world as schools closed during the pandemic. We look at four countries as pupils try to resume their education
Children’s mental health suffers as schools remain shut
Continue reading...Covid, climate breakdown, poverty and war threaten return to school after pandemic kept 1.5bn children out of classes
The education of hundreds of millions of children is hanging by a thread as a result of an unprecedented intensity of threats including Covid 19 and the climate crisis, a report warned today.
As classrooms across much of the world prepare to reopen after the summer holidays, a quarter of countries – most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – have school systems that are at extreme or high risk of collapse, according to Save the Children.
Continue reading...A study in Burkina Faso and Mali suggests combining anti-malarial drugs and vaccination could reduce deaths and hospitalisations
A trial combining vaccinations and prevention drugs has substantially lowered the number of children dying of malaria in two African countries, according to researchers.
The results of the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, have been hailed as “very striking”, especially at a time when decades-long progress on combating malaria has stalled in some countries.
Continue reading...Death toll from the assault near northern town of Gorgadji leaves 59 civilians dead, along with six militiamen and 15 military police
Burkina Faso’s president has declared three days of national mourning after suspected jihadists killed 80 people, including 59 civilians, in an attack in the north of the country.
The attack was the latest bloodshed in an area with high levels of Islamist violence.
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