In the days since he seized power in a coup, army captain Ibrahim Traoré has sought to reassure the people of Burkina Faso that he will bring peace to a country wracked by a jihadist insurgency.
The 34-year-old has cast himself as a reluctant leader forced by worsening insecurity to oust Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who himself said the same when he overthrew the democratically elected president Roch Kaboré in January.
“I know I’m younger than most of you here. We didn’t want what happened but we didn’t have a choice,” Traoré said at a meeting with government officials this week.
But with this year set to have the highest death toll for jihadi violence in Burkina Faso and Mali since the crisis began a decade ago, analysts question what can be done to combat the Isis and Al-Qaeda-linked jihadis who have gained control of almost half of the nation’s territory.
“Everything has been tried but still the jihadis are growing and occupying larger territories,” said Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, a Sahel analyst at the International Crisis Group think-tank.
National armies, 15,000 UN forces and the French and European forces of Operation Barkhane have been involved in the fight against jihad across the region. Mali turned to Russian mercenaries for help, a move Traoré has not ruled out. This year alone, there has been a severe escalation as insurgents have gained ground.
Almost 5,500 people were killed in the first half of the year by non-state armed groups, state security forces and self-defence groups across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a conflict data reporting outfit. This compares with 5,720 for the whole of 2021. ACLED says 2022 is on track to be the deadliest in Burkina Faso and Mali.
Almost 2mn people — 10 per cent of Burkina Faso’s population — have been displaced. The violence has affected 10 of the country’s 13 administrative regions. According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, nearly two-thirds of the 135 administrative regions in Mali, Burkina Faso and western Niger have witnessed violent extremist attacks this year.
Some attacks have grabbed international headlines. In June, 89 people were killed in the northern village of Seytenga, one of the worst atrocities in Burkina Faso’s history. Last month, 35 people died when their convoy hit a roadside bomb on its way to the capital Ouagadougou.
As the violence has surged, so has a tolerance for coups among local populations and the military rank and file, who felt they had insufficient resources to confront the jihadis, said Ornella Moderan, a political and security analyst in the Sahel.
“The security forces were not prepared to take on such a significant situation,” Moderan said.
Some in Burkina Faso have called for “new partners” in the fight against terrorism, understood to mean Moscow. Last weekend, young men, some draped in Russian flags, attacked the French embassy in Ouagadougou and a cultural centre in Bobo-Dioulasso in the country’s south.
The new leader has been guarded about Russia, saying in an interview on French radio that “there are many partners. France is a partner. There is no particular target.” Groups who support the new regime have been vocal on social media about inviting the Russian mercenary group Wagner, said Crisis Group’s Ibrahim.
“Some people who support Traoré in civil society organisations are calling for Russia to intervene. Many actors may disagree, but those who call for Russia are more vocal. There is a deep grievance with France in this region,” Ibrahim said, referring to residual resentment over colonialism and France’s more recent perceived meddling in domestic affairs through local elites with close links to Paris.
France has firmly condemned the violence against its diplomatic outposts in Burkina Faso, and urged its citizens to exercise caution there. The French foreign ministry declined to say whether it had any contacts with Traoré, and said it would “continue to closely follow the situation in Burkina Faso”.
Some pro-Russian groups want a more aggressive approach to dealing with jihadis. “You either try to identify the jihadis and eliminate them individually. This is what the French try to do,” Ibrahim said. “Or you could go and attack villages and kill jihadis alongside civilians to impose yourself on the ground without taking into account human rights abuses and this is the method the Russians are trying to use. But that has produced only limited results in Mali.”
The situation in Mali has deteriorated since Wagner, which has been accused of human rights violations, arrived early this year.
After a decade of anti-terrorism operations in the Sahel, analysts wonder if it may be time to consider dialogue between governments and armed groups.
“The military is indispensable but we have to back it with different forms of responses, including a political response that includes dialogue with these groups because today they are major actors,” said Ibrahim.
As the new administration seeks to establish itself, Traoré this week met a delegation sent by the West African regional grouping Ecowas. He assured them that his regime would stick with the July 2024 civilian transition plan agreed with Damiba’s administration.
But, as he made clear in later interviews: “All that matters is whether the level of security is good, that’s the fight.”
Additional reporting by Leila Abboud in Paris
