Burkina Faso: Fifty women abducted by jihadist suspects

About 50 women were abducted Thursday and Friday by jihadist suspects in Arbind, northern Burkina Faso, local authorities and residents of the regularly abused locality said.

According to several residents and local officials who wished to remain anonymous, the first group of about forty women was abducted about ten kilometers southeast of Arbinda, and another of about twenty the next day in the north of this municipality.

Some managed to escape and return to their villages to testify.

“The women got together to go gather leaves and wild fruits in the bushes because there was nothing to eat,” one resident explained, adding that they left with their carts on Thursday afternoon. “Thursday night, without seeing them return, we thought their carts were in trouble. But the three survivors came back to tell us what happened,” another resident added.

“We think they bred them to different bases”

According to him, the next day, eight kilometers north of Arbinda, about twenty women who were not informed about the first kidnapping were in turn victims of the kidnapping. “In both groups, the women managed to evade the vigilance of the terrorists and return to the village on foot,” he explained. “We believe that the kidnappers took them to different bases,” he continued.

According to local authorities, who confirmed the abduction, the army and civilian auxiliaries searched the area without success.

The commune of Arbinda is located in the Sahel region, in the north of Burkina Faso, in an area under siege by jihadist groups and hardly supplied with food. Almost a million people currently live in the besieged areas in the north or east of the country, according to the UN.

Burkina Faso, especially in its northern part, has been facing increased attacks by jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State since 2015. They left thousands dead and at least two million displaced.

Captain Ibrahim Traore, interim president in a military coup on September 30 – the second in eight months – set himself the goal of “reclaiming the territory occupied by these hordes of terrorists.”