KAYA, Burkina Faso (AP) – A 20-year-old woman could no longer live in her village amid escalating violence caused by Islamic extremists. But he needed to go back and get the family’s cows back in hopes of selling them.
If her husband left, the jihadists would almost certainly kill him. She went to her place and was dragged into the bush, beaten and raped to the point of a knife.
“I yelled, but I couldn’t get ahead of him, so I cried,” he recalled in a phone interview in the town of Barsalogho, in the North Central region where he now lives. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual violence.
Extremist violence in Burkina Faso related to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group is fueling an increase in sexual assaults on women, especially those displaced by attacks. Many are preyed upon as they try to pick up the belongings they left behind.
The violence killed more than 2,000 people last year, according to the Armed Forces Event and Location Data Project. It also displaced more than a million people.
In the North Central region of Burkina Faso, cases of sexual assault increased from two to ten over a three-month period last year, according to a report by humanitarian groups including the United Nations. Eighty-five percent of the survivors were internally displaced people living mainly in makeshift camps in the towns of Barsalogho and Kaya, he said.
Kaya’s women told AP they feared being attacked as they went to get firewood to cook.
“I will not go more than 4 kilometers outside Kaya to the farm because I fear that for my safety,” Kotim Sawadogo said. The 37-year-old fled Dablo in August and is struggling to pay for her four children’s food. In September 2019, his niece was raped by jihadists while doing work outside the village, he said.
“They will not be killed, but will be raped, which is like being killed inside,” said Fatimata Sawadogo, who was displaced last year from Dablo to Kaya and who knows the women who have been raped by jihadists while working. Women often assume that rapists are jihadists because they wear weapons and wear masks.
Sometimes, after assaulting women, jihadists burn their food, and yet some women are so desperate that they come back the next day to save them, he said.
Aid groups say jihadists are not the only perpetrators and there has been an increase in domestic violence and the exploitation of displaced women by host communities.
“This reality is exacerbated by the lack of economic opportunities for women, the scarcity of food and shelter for women, and the lack of access to quality health care,” said Jennifer Overton, regional director of Catholic Relief Services in West Africa.
Earlier this month, a Kaya woman said she had sex with a community leader twice, in June and November, because she promised she could add her name to a list to receive food. “I’m sorry, but I thought I would get food and I never did,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for his safety.
Prior to the violence, Burkina Faso did not have specialized services focused on sexual assault. Humanitarians are now struggling to cope with it, said Awa Nebie, a specialist in gender-based violence at the United Nations Population Fund.
This year, the humanitarian response plan in Burkina Faso estimates that more than 660,000 people will need protection from gender-based violence, Nebie said.
Since August, the organization has created six safe spaces in the North Center to help women and girls talk freely about their experiences, but it is inappropriate, she said. And some areas of the country like the Sahel and Eastern regions are difficult to access due to insecurity.
Local government officials say the daily influx of displaced people is reducing resources and putting women at risk by forcing them to go deeper into the bush to collect wood for cooking.
“In the past, women could find resources two or three kilometers away, but with the growing number, they are going further and further and it is very worrying,” said Saidou Wily, head of Barsalogho’s social welfare services. .
The government increased security in the city and advises women not to enter the jungle alone.
Still, mothers who try to feed their children say they have little choice.
Last year, a seven-year-old 40-year-old mother was raped at gunpoint by two masked men who dragged her to an abandoned farmhouse while trying to return to her hometown in the Sahel region to look for food. he said.
He now lives in Kaya, is too scared to leave again, but has no money to support his family.
“I think about it a lot and I don’t even know what I’m thinking, I just cry,” he said. “It’s a misery.”