A higher degree of weaponization in turn directly impacts the levels of violence in cattle rustling and kidnapping incidents, sometimes resulting in the deaths of the victims if they show the slightest amount of opposition.9 Cattle rustling and kidnapping also reinforce each other: several sources in Burkina Faso and the wider Sahel highlighted how kidnappings of shepherds or livestock owners some. [...] The conflict has evolved from a localized uprising in Soum province, Sahel region, in northern Burkina Faso, to a fully fledged insurgency spreading across 11 of the 13 regions, with key conflict hubs in the northern and eastern regions of the country (Sahel, Nord, Centre-Nord and Est), and escalating tensions in 2021 and 2022 in the western and south-western regions of Hauts-Bassins and Cascades,. [...] Because of the nature of these operations and the lack follow-up investigations – for example, to determine whether it actually took place and whether the person was freed – it is not possible to draw a clear and comprehensive picture of the scale of the overall kidnapping economy, nor to map the number of kidnappings per perpetrator. [...] In addition to the three individuals kidnapped in the early days of the violent extremist insurgency in Burkina Faso, several foreigners have since been kidnapped by JNIM, and are either still in captivity, have been released or killed, or have escaped.124 In September 2018, for example, the son of the head of Balaji Group (a company exploiting the Inata mining site in the Sahel region) as well as. [...] An enhanced understanding of the kidnapping economy in Burkina Faso, and, in particu- lar, JNIM’s role as a key perpetrator, adds to the evidence base underscoring that the near-exclusive focus on the financial proceeds from illicit economies for violent extremist groups in the Sahel in understanding the crime–terror nexus is not representative of the complex realities on the ground.
- Pages
- 41
- Published in
- Switzerland
