Burkina Faso: in the province of Comoé, villages empty due to insecurity
Burkinabè people take their belongings when they flee their village in January 2020. AFP - OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT
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4 min
Eight villages in the commune of Mangodara, in the province of Comoé, in the south-west of the country, on the border with Côte d'Ivoire, have been deserted by their population.
For about a week, thousands of families have been leaving to find refuge in Mangodara, the capital of the town or on the other side of the border.
They are fleeing insecurity.
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“
In one week, nearly 2,000 people arrived in Mangodara,
” explains a town official.
Most are hosted by families.
Others are accommodated in a school.
But according to a local authority, the reception capacity of the establishment is already saturated.
“
In Mangodara, we are around
10,000 inhabitants.
It is not easy to welcome all these people, but it is solidarity that prevails
”, continues the notable.
The inhabitants of the surrounding villages are fleeing the violence which has intensified for ten days.
On Friday September 3, armed individuals entered the town of Sirakoro to kidnap a man accused of being an "informant" of the authorities.
During the night of September 9 to 10, in Noumoukiédougou, a volunteer for the defense of the fatherland was assassinated and his mother injured.
“
We meet armed men, sometimes they preach in the villages.
We know that's how it started in the north and east of the country,
”explains a local resident.
Some villagers preferred to cross the Comoé River to cross into Ivory Coast, because "
people are so afraid that they no longer dare to take the road
", concludes a local authority.
1.4 million displaced people
In a statement dated Monday, the NGO Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warns of the new violence in Burkina Faso and its impact on the populations.
The country has 275,000 newly displaced since April.
In all, more than 1.4 million people are now internally displaced, mostly in the Sahel region in the north of the country.
Displacement of populations which has a strong impact on the food security of populations.
Since April, there has been a fairly strong upsurge in violence.
A very precarious situation for the displaced in a period known as the lean period, when the granaries are almost empty.
There is not much to eat before the next harvest.
All this creates an extremely precarious climate for these displaced people, who in addition do not benefit from adequate humanitarian aid.
Tom Peyre-Costa, regional spokesperson for NRC
Charlotte cosset
Currently, internally displaced persons (IDPs) are hosted in 274 communes in the 13 regions of the country.
Most of these displaced people have benefited from food assistance amounting to 38,000 tonnes of food, with priority given to communes in the grip of insecurity.
More than 2 billion CFA francs have also been transferred to these IDPs and host populations, according to Laurence Marshall Ilboudo, Minister of Women, National Solidarity, Family and Humanitarian Action.
In order to have reliable figures on the number of internally displaced persons, the government intends to set up a new counting system.
We will work on setting up the PDI card.
We are going to give a card to each head of the family with a bar code.
In the event of mobility, they will only have to give this bar code and will be taken care of in the same way as they were.
But there will be no more duplicates on the lists.
We will have real reliable books.
Laurence Marshall Ilboudo Minister of National Solidarity, Family and Humanitarian Action
Yaya Boudani
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