Burkina Faso last Friday announced that it was creating new rapid response forces, recruiting 14,000 soldiers and thousands of civilian support staff, to fight jihadist violence.
Burkina Faso has been plagued by Islamist attacks in the last 10 years, leaving an estimated 26,000 soldiers and civilians dead.
Prime Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo told the transitional parliament that the new battalions would bring the number of army rapid response forces in the country to 28 and police mobile units to 13.
“More than 14,000 soldiers of all types and thousands of (civilian defense force volunteers) have been recruited, trained, and equipped,” he added.
The rapid intervention battalions (BIR) and civilian defense volunteers (VDP) have been accused multiple times of abuses against civilians, including earlier this week in western Burkina Faso.
The years of violence have forced more than two million people to flee their homes, according to the last available UN refugee agency figures from March 2023.
Of the two main jihadist groups carrying out deadly attacks, the Al-Qaeda affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims “seems to have established a large corridor from the north to the south to the east of Burkina Faso, stretching as far as the Tillaberi region of Niger,” the source said.
The other jihadist group in Burkina Faso is the Islamic State Sahel Province.
In October 2022, the government of Burkina Faso launched a drive to recruit 50,000 civilian defense volunteers to help the army fight jihadists, that its top priority would be to secure the nation’s territory, after the latest coup to rock the jihadist-torn Sahel state.
The VDP is defined as “a person of Burkinabe nationality, auxiliary to the Defense and Security Forces (FDS), voluntarily serving the security interests of his village or sector of residence. VDPs receive 14 days of civic and military training before being armed and provided with means of communication. Recruits usually receive training for a fortnight before being handed weapons and means of communication.
Meanwhile, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, member countries of the Confederation of Sahel States (AES), also known as the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS), are preparing to operationalize a joint force of 5,000 men in the coming weeks. This initiative aims to strengthen the fight against terrorism in the AES area.