Burkina Faso: UN claims hundred thousand people displaced mainly in 2 months

A report released by the United Nation claims that over a hundred thousand people have been displaced by factional fighting and lawlessness in Burkina Faso, mainly in the past two months.

Burkina Faso is confronting massive internal displacement and this is for the first time in its history, the report noted. "Repeated raids by armed groups and insecurity in the regions of Centre-Nord, Nord and Sahel have also triggered an unprecedented humanitarian emergency," the report added.

The government and humanitarian groups had begun a USD 100 million aid plan to help 900,000 people, the report further claimed. Burkina Faso's border in the Sahel region countries of Niger and Mali to the north where militant groups, some linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, carry out attacks. As well as an Islamic insurrection in the north, the West African country was attacked by unknown militants in the east and attacks in the capital and elsewhere perpetrated by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

That militant group is active across the Sahel, according to a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank. "For the first time since independence, Burkinabe state authorities have lost control of parts of the country," said the ICG report, published in January this year.

Also Read: 146 jihadists assassinated by Burkina Faso soldiers after civilian attack