The government of Burkina Faso needlessly exposed civilians to danger during a militant attack earlier this year, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Tuesday.
In August, at least 100 villagers were killed by fighters from an al-Qaeda -linked militant group in central Burkina Faso, in one of the deadliest attacks of the year in the conflict-torn West African country.
Villagers in Barsalogho commune, located 80 km from the capital Ouagadougou, were forcibly helping security forces dig trenches to protect security posts and villages when fighters from the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin group invaded the area and opened fire on them, the report said.
The JNIM group, which claimed responsibility for the attack, said all the villagers targeted were members of Burkina Faso-affiliated militias in its response to the report.
Human Rights Watch said it had confirmed through video analysis and witness testimony that at least 133 people were killed, including dozens of children, and at least 200 others were injured.
“The Barsalogho massacre is the latest example of atrocities committed by Islamist armed groups against civilians whom the government has exposed to unnecessary risk ,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in the report.
About half of Burkina Faso is outside government control as the country has been ravaged by increasing militant attacks, encircling the capital. Militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have killed thousands of people and displaced more than two million.
The violence contributed to two coups in 2022. Yet the military junta that had promised to end the attacks has struggled to do so, even after seeking new security partnerships with Russia other junta-ruled and conflict-affected countries in the Sahel region.
The government’s reliance on armed civilian auxiliaries, known as the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP), to fight the militants puts civilians at great risk, Allegrozzi told The Associated Press, as many become targets of jihadists who accuse them of being supporters or even members of the VDP.
According to witnesses cited in the report, the Burkinabe army forced male residents to dig a new section of trench near the village without paying them, but many refused, fearing they would be exposed to attack. But the soldiers forced them to do the work by threatening and beating them.
The country’s justice minister, Edasso Rodrigue Bayala , in his response to Human Rights Watch, said that forced labor was prohibited by law in Burkina Faso and that “the testimonies that the military forced the population to dig the trench are not proven . “