In the north of Ivory Coast, refugees from neighboring Burkina Faso are fleeing two threats: the jihadist attacks which are bloodying the country and the abuses of civilian auxiliaries of the army which particularly target the Fulani ethnic group.
“It was a baptism day. All of a sudden, we heard gunshots. The jihadists killed all our husbands and threatened us with the same fate during their next visit,” says Ami G., a young woman from the Mossi ethnic group, the majority in Burkina, wiping a tear running down her face. .
A year ago, armed men landed in his village, near Titao, in the north of the country. That same evening, with her six children, she left everything behind and walked for several days to escape her village.
“They had already come, forced us to wear long black dresses. And then, they threatened us with reprisals, because we spoke to the soldiers. There is war there, they even kill children,” she says.
At the end of her journey, she crossed the border to “find peace”, in Ouangolodougou, 600 km further south, in Ivory Coast, where she is housed in a reception center for “asylum seekers”. — the Ivorian authorities do not recognize them as refugees.
Murders and looting
A little further away, in the camp, Adama M., blue veil and yellow loincloth, remembers the day when armed men came to loot their homes.
“They shot my aunt in the head and tied up and kidnapped my older brother. They told us not to cry,” she says, after traveling 900 km from Gorom-Gorom, in the far north of Burkina.
Atrocities committed by jihadist groups against civilians have left more than 26,000 dead in Burkina since 2015, according to the NGO Acled, which records victims of conflict around the world. The number of people displaced by the violence is estimated at more than two million.
But other abuses are pushing the Burkinabè to flee their country: those of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP), civilian auxiliaries of the army, gained in power under the head of the junta in power, Captain Ibrahim Traoré , to defend villages against attacks.
In the ranks of the jihadists, there is a majority of Fulani, an ethnic group of nomadic breeders. And according to numerous testimonies collected by AFP, the entire community has become the target of the VDP.
Abdoulaye D., 79, hugs his one-year-old granddaughter. He fled his Bobo-Dioulasso region with his grandchildren when men in “arms and fatigues” killed his two sons and took all his livestock.
“They tied up all the Fulani and executed them with guns,” he told AFP.
When the name of the head of the junta, Ibrahim Traoré, is mentioned, a flash of anger crosses his eyes: “The power creates ethnic differentiation. Burkina and me are over, even when I die, we must not send my body there,” says the old man who arrived in Ivory Coast four months ago.
Similar testimonies within the community are legion. Aminata S. left Nouna (North) in January 2023 after the VDP killed her husband and parents, a massacre attributed by Amnesty International to “auxiliary forces of the army”.
“They arrived on a Friday, they killed my whole family. There were three Fulani camps, they shot everywhere and killed 31 people,” she explains.
Ethnic targeting
She also no longer wants to “hear about” Captain Traoré and says she “does not want to return to Burkina”.
“Everyone knows that this is where there is peace,” says Amadou Barry, who also fled.
“Fulani traders who were regularly seen coming here were killed by the VDP. They said they were supplying the jihadists. They target people who go back and forth between the two countries,” confides an Ivorian resident of Ouangolodogou who wishes to remain anonymous.
“In the bush, in Burkina, if you are Fulani they say that you are a jihadist. If anyone sees you, you’re dead. It’s ethnic targeting,” says Moussa T., who also came to seek safety in Ivory Coast.
At the Niornigué reception camp, where 98% of the population is of Fulani origin, many Mossis, the majority ethnic group in Burkina, did not stay, officially to find fields to cultivate elsewhere and live off their harvests.
“Many left because they did not want to live with the Fulani. When they see them, it reminds them of the jihadists,” confides an asylum seeker, “but for me, cohabitation is good, these people haven’t done anything to me.”