People in Burkina exclusion zones given 14 days to leave

Burkina Faso

Ouagadougou – Burkina Faso’s army has said it will grant people 14-days to evacuate two military zones in the country’s north and east before “human presence is forbidden.”

The areas are reputed havens for jihadists, and the decision to establish the two zones was taken at a defense council convened on Monday by junta leader Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. On Friday, the junta’s head of domestic operations, Lieutenant Colonel Yves Didier Bamouni said “a period of 14 days will be given to the resident population to move to safer areas.”The two areas are in the northern Soum province bordering Mali, and the protected natural reserves between Pama and the “W” National Park in the east.

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Bamouni had said the aim was to make it easier to combat “the terrorist hydra.”

All human activity and human presence will be banned in the zones. Anyone who ventures into them risks exposing themselves “to the military operations that will be conducted there shortly”, Bamouni said on Monday.

The decision comes just over a week after 86 civilians were massacred in an attack blamed on jihadists on the northern border village of Seytenga.

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It was the second worst attack since 2015, when violence attributed to fighters linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group began.

Thousands have since died and nearly two million people have fled their homes.

The new government led by Damiba, who overthrew elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore in January, vowed to restore security, blaming Kabore of not doing enough to repel armed jihadists groups.

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Source: AFP 

Picture: Pixabay 

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