Military forces in Burkina Faso killed 223 civilians, including babies and children, in attacks on two villages accused of cooperating with militants, Human Rights Watch said in a report published Thursday.
The mass killings took place on 25 February in the country's northern villages of Nondin and Soro.
Fifty-six children were among the dead, according to the report, which called on the United Nations and the African Union to investigate and to support local efforts to bring those responsible to justice.
“The massacres in Nondin and Soro villages are just the latest mass killings of civilians by the Burkina Faso military in their counterinsurgency operations,” Human Rights Watch director Tirana Hassan said in a statement.
“International assistance is critical to support a credible investigation into possible crimes against humanity.”
Burkina Faso’s army executed 223 civilians in ‘mass killings’, says Human Rights Watch
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The once-peaceful nation has been ravaged by violence that has pitted jihadis linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group against state-backed forces.
Both sides have targeted civilians caught in the middle, displacing more than 2 million people, of which more than half are children.
Most attacks go unpunished and unreported in a nation run by a repressive leadership that silences perceived dissidents.
HRW provided a rare firsthand account of the killings by survivors amid a stark increase in civilian casualties by Burkina Faso’s security forces as the junta struggles to beat back a growing jihadi insurgency and attacks residents under the guise of counterterrorism.
More than 20,000 people have been killed in Burkina Faso since jihadi violence first hit the West African nation nine years ago, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a USt-based non-profit.
Burkina Faso experienced two coups in 2022. Since seizing power in September 2022, the junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré has promised to beat back militants but violence has only worsened, analysts say.
Around half of Burkina Faso’s territory remains outside of government control.
Frustrated with a lack of progress over years of Western military assistance, the junta has severed military ties with former colonial ruler France and turned to Russian instead for security support.
(with newswires)
