Burkina Faso: In Jibo, Life Under Jihadist Blockade

The city was buzzing, impatient. We had a preview of To’s dish, millet porridge, which we would soon share with the family. The taste of sugar, for the richer ones, to put in tea. Residents of Jibo, in northern Burkina Faso, watched the red highway leading to the capital, Ouagadougou, 200 kilometers away, hoping to see on the horizon a procession of goods trucks arriving to fill empty shops.

Unfortunately, the army-escorted convoy that was supposed to supply the city, which has been besieged by the jihadists for seven months, will not arrive. On the way, he was the target of a violent attack on Monday, September 26. Dozens of trucks were burned with their cargo. According to an interim official report, at least eleven soldiers were killed and up to fifty civilians are still missing. According to several media reports, at the request of the Burkinabé authorities, French planes intervened as reinforcements from the “Barkhani” forces.

On Wednesday, the delegate of the Minister of Defense, Silas Keita, condemned it “Unfortunate Accomplices” spearheaded the ambush and ensured that operations were underway to move resources into the pocket as quickly as possible. The capital of Soum province, the city is supplied with dribs and drabs. The last convoy arrived in July. On the left in early September, he himself was hit by an improvised explosive device that killed 35 people.

The trucks attacked on Monday were carrying several hundred tons of basic necessities: millet, rice, cans of oil, soap, medicines. According to our information, the attackers were waiting to march in an abandoned army camp in Gaskinde, about twenty kilometers from Jibo.

No one comes in or out

“The soldiers tried to defend themselves, but there were too many terrorists, so we got off the buses and started running into the bushes.” Shooting in all directions, people were falling one by one around me.– says the survivor who was contacted by phone. This 64-year-old man says that he walked twenty kilometers to the nearest town, along with his two children, and was shot in the cheek and kidney. That day, hundreds of travelers like him used the convoy to reach their homes in Jibo.