In a friend’s house in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second-largest city, Maimuona* remembers the night her son was born. “There were gunshots and everyone was running,” she says. Jihadists attacked her village, sending everyone scattering into the bush and causing Maimouna to go into labour early. Seydou was born by the side of a sandy road. His nickname is “the lucky one”.
In the two years since, the family have not been able to return home, displaced by an insurgency that has been simmering since 2014, killing thousands and pushing more than 2 million – almost 10% of the population – from their homes. The situation has been described as the world’s most neglected crisis.
The attackers, believed to be from one of the most active terror groups in the country, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (the Group for the Support for Islam and Muslims), burned houses and shops in Maimuona’s village in Nord region, and killed their goats and cows.
“Do you see the clothes we are wearing? We left with these on, we didn’t have time to grab anything,” says Maimuona, who is now living in the cramped home of her friend in the south-west Hauts-Bassins region, a relatively safe spot in the country, along with her husband, his other wife and their children. One child, Mamourou*, 13, was hit by a motorcycle during the escape. He now walks with a limp because they could not find him medical treatment for the injury.
Fighting broke out in Burkina Faso after an uprising in 2014 ousted president Blaise Compaoré. Compaoré had ruled the country for 27 years and acted as intermediary between the Tuaregs, jihadists and the government of neighbouring Mali during its security crisis in 2012-2013.
Compaoré’s successor, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, was in turn removed from office after a coup in 2022, led by Paul-Henri Damiba. The current president, Ibrahim Traoré, wants to recapture the 40% of the country estimated to be controlled by groups aligned to al-Qaida and Islamic State. At least 90,000 people registered to join the controversial Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland group to fight alongside the army. The volunteers are themselves accused of vigilante activities and of stoking further unrest.
Human Rights Watch has accused all sides of unlawful killings, including the execution of 223 civilians by the army in a single day in February. The government denies the claim and has banned the organisation, along with several media outlets, including the Guardian.
Last year saw an uptick in violence, with more than 8,000 people reported killed, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled), a 137% increase on 2022.
Maimuona’s family is among 256,000 people displaced by fighting from the Nord region. Many have ended up in Hauts-Bassins.
“We used to have a cosmetics, makeup, and a shoe store, but we lost everything,” says Maimuona. She says the family doesn’t have enough money even to buy a sack of rice and relies on the charity of local people. “It’s the goodwill of the people that saves us,” she says.
Food is “the most urgent need right now”, says one humanitarian worker, who declined to be named. All the aid workers the Guardian spoke to requested anonymity for fear of state reprisals. In this, the lean season before October’s harvest, more than 2.7 million Burkinabes face hunger.
More than 6 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN, which has received 17% of the $935m it says it requires this year to meet the west African country’s needs.
“During the first three months of March, we were able to assist at least 731,000 people,” says a worker from another aid agency, adding they had seen a “significant increase” in deaths from hunger.
Aid is not reaching 40 cities blockaded by armed groups in the north and east, home to about 1.2 million people.
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People in these areas are living “with fear in their stomachs”, says an aid worker.
The price of basic goods has increased fivefold in the blockaded cities. A litre of gasoline, which costs about 1,000 francs (£1.30) in the capital, Ouagadougou, sells for 7,500 francs. “Health services are paralysed, schools are closed, but there are people who decide to keep living in these cities and risk their lives to bring food,” says the aid worker.
About 80% of the country’s schools have been closed because of the violence, and 818,149 students are not in class, according to the Ministry of National Education, Literacy and the Promotion of National Languages. Between 2022 and 2023, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) documented 270 attacks on educational centres by Islamist militia groups in 10 of Burkina Faso’s 13 regions.
Schools that host displaced people are overwhelmed, and some have built additional outdoor classrooms to accommodate new students. Of the 555 students at one school in the city of Kaya, 500 are from displaced families.
Other pupils continue their education via radio. “Despite the humanitarian challenges faced by the population, the generosity of host communities to support displaced persons and the resilience of affected populations are remarkable,” says a humanitarian source.
Maimuona remains hopefully that “God willing” she and the family will one day be able to return to the village her son has never seen.
* Names have been changed.