Burkina Faso is a land locked country situated in West Africa, with very few resources. The country's economy mostly depends on agriculture, which employs almost 80% of the population. Burkina Faso faces many development challenges particularly in terms of health and education. It ranks 144th among 157 countries in the new human capital index established by the World Bank and 40.1% of the population lives below the national poverty line. Listing it among 10 poorest countries in the world. Furthermore, insecurity linked to frequent terrorist attacks since 2016 has created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. More than 900 security incidents have been registered in 2019. Violent attacks claimed almost 2,190 lives, 60% of whom were civilians.
So, what led to this drastic situation?
To understand the unrest in Burkina Faso one must first understand its tangled history. Although this country stretches over a very small area, its history is in no way very brief.
The Republic of Upper Volta got renamed as "Burkina Faso", which means the land of the honest. It was established on 11 December 1958 as a self-governing colony within the French Community. On 5 August 1960 it gained full independence with Maurice Yaméogo as its President. In the year 1966, Yameogo toppled in a military coup led by Sangoule Lamizana following unrest over a government austerity programme. Later during the 1970's Lamizana was replaced by an elected president; Gerard Ouedraogo and was appointed Prime Minister.
However, in 1974 President Lamizana re-asserted authority by ousting Prime Minister Ouedraogo and dissolving the parliament. Later on, he won the 1978 presidential election. In the year 1980, President Lamizana was overthrown in a coup led by Saye Zerbo. In 1982 - Saye Zerbo was overthrown in a coup led by Jean-Baptiste Ouedraogo following an industrial unrest. Things aren’t done yet, in 1987, Thomas Sankara ousted and killed Blaise Compaore in a coup led by his close aide. This was the time when the country was provided a limited taste of democratic reforms by Compaore.
Compaore ruled the country for over 27years. However, during his reign in December 2000 an uprising of militant groups was noticed in the country, allegations of the country being involved in smuggling arms to rebels in Sierra Leone and Angola were made. In response to this the government agreed to set up an UN-run body to monitor weapons imports.
It was in 2010 July when France and The US issued travel warnings, citing the possibility of kidnappings by Al Qaeda. In 2012 November, President Compaore was in talks to resolve the crisis in Mali, where Islamists had taken control of the north.
The 2011 Burkinabé protests were a series of popular protests in Burkina Faso. From 2011 until 2014, Burkina Faso went through unprecedented demonstrations that forced President Compaoré out of office after 27 years of rule. The people demanded change, they were frustrated by 27 years of injustice, impunity and poor governance. The entire social fabric, including ordinary citizens, student organisations, civil society and military, came down on streets to bring in the change they wanted. People were determined and their Burkinabé protests which were inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings that took place, showed how distressed they were. The aftermath of Burkinabé protests went into civilians' favour but not for long.
A transition government was established with Foreign Minister Michel Kafando as interim president. The situation seemed to be in control but the incidents that followed after the new interim government didn’t mend the situation, in turn it eradicated the remaining peace and safety of Burkina Faso.
In 2015 April a Romanian security officer at a mine in the north of the country was kidnapped. Islamist militants later claimed to be holding him.
Finally, general elections were held on 29 November 2015, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré won in the first round with 53.5% of the vote and was sworn in as president on 29 December 2015.
Since then the terrorist activities have taken a hike in the country. In January 2016 Islamist militants attacked a hotel and cafe in the capital, Ouagadougou, killing 29 people, many of them foreigners. Later that same year in December Islamists waved black flags, stormed a military base near the Mali border and killed 11 soldiers.
In February 2017, five Sahel countries agreed to set up a joint counter-terrorism force but it was of no use as in August 2017, 18 people were killed in a terrorist attack in a Turkish restaurant in the capital Ouagadougou.
In March 2018 the French embassy came under attack. Sixteen people were killed, including eight gunmen.
Present scenario:
Growing insecurity, particularly in the north, close to the border with Mali and Niger has displaced many residents of Burkina Faso. In January 2019, fewer than 87,000 people were internally displaced while in August 2020 this number rose to over 1 million. At that time, more than 2,000 schools were closed, a situation that deprived some 300,000 students of their education and impacted more than 11,000 teachers.
2 million people are affected by conflict and around 2.2 million need humanitarian assistance. 1 million people are currently food insecure. Violence against civilians has increased with 823 deaths since January representing almost half (46 per cent) of total number of casualties.
An estimated 350,000 people now need urgent access to adequate shelter and water to help them cope with desert-like conditions in remote parts of Burkina Faso. Fresh insecurity is driving more people from their homes every day. Burkina Faso is currently the world’s fastest-growing displacement crisis with close to 1 million people having been displaced by conflict and drought in the last 16 months. Nearly 60,000 were forced out of their homes in the month of March alone. Despite the increased deployment of security forces, armed groups continue to wreak havoc in the country’s Centre Nord and Sahel regions, attacking police and military, civilians, schools, health centres, teachers and health workers alike. A total of 469 violent events have claimed 1791 lives since January this year.
Aid provided by international communities:
In 2020, the EU will support humanitarian action in Burkina Faso with €22.5 million. This amount includes €10 million in additional funding mobilised recently to help aid organisations in Burkina Faso scale up their actions in face of the rising humanitarian needs triggered by conflict.
Humanitarian partners requested US$100 million to be able to reach 898,000 people with basic aid in the year 2019. Complementing this, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has just allocated US$4 million to boost the ongoing response, providing immediate assistance to 25,000 IDPs in four sites, and 5,000 people in host communities in the Centre-Nord and Sahel regions.
The allocation will also support services for over 15,500 women and girls.
Although donations are made by international organizations, there’s something more that this West African country needs. It needs support and assistance to build itself, it needs frontline volunteers to provide education to its young population. The country demands clean drinking water supply, proper sanitation, medical facilities and protection of their basic human rights.
Burkina Faso has always remained the hub of despair and crisis since its formation. Natural calamities coupled with violence is making survival in "the land of honests" more difficult day by day. In order to rescue these unfortunate people out of the situation, the situation should be highlighted more often, because in the end the world needs to know what the world is going through.
“At a time when the world has gone COVID-19, a certain number of important crises are forgotten.”
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