KAYA, Burkina Faso (AP) – A 20-year-old woman could no longer live in her village amid the escalating violence caused by Islamic extremists. But she needed to return and retrieve the family’s cows in the hope of selling them.
If your husband were, the jihadists would almost certainly kill him. Instead, she went and was dragged into the bush, beaten and raped with a knife.
“I screamed, but I couldn’t get over it, so I cried,” she recalled in a telephone interview in the city of Barsalogho, in the Center-North region, where she now lives. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual violence.
Extremist violence in Burkina Faso linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group is fueling an increase in sexual assaults on women, especially those displaced by the attacks. Many are victims as they try to collect the belongings they left behind.
The violence killed more than 2,000 people last year, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. It also displaced more than 1 million people.
In the north-central region of Burkina Faso, cases of sexual violence increased from two to ten over a three-month period last year, according to a report by humanitarian groups, including the United Nations. About 85% of the survivors were internally displaced people, living mainly in makeshift camps in the cities of Barsalogho and Kaya, the report said.
Women in Kaya told the AP that they fear being attacked while fetching firewood for cooking.
“I will not go more than 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) outside Kaya to cultivate because I fear for my safety,” said Kotim Sawadogo. The 37-year-old woman fled Dablo in August and is struggling to buy food for her four children. In September 2019, her niece was raped by jihadists while farming outside the village, she said.
“They will not be killed, but they will be raped, which is like dying inside the house,” said Fatimata Sawadogo, who was displaced last year from Dablo to Kaya and knows women who were raped by jihadists during agriculture. Women often assume that rapists are jihadists because they carry weapons and wear masks.
Sometimes, after assaulting women, jihadists burn their food, but some women are so desperate that they return the next day to rescue her, she said.
Humanitarian aid groups say that jihadists are not the only perpetrators and that there has been an increase in domestic violence and the exploitation of displaced women by host communities.
“This reality is compounded 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, West Africa regional director for Catholic Assistance Services. .
Earlier this month, a woman in Kaya said she had sex with a community leader twice, in June and November, because he promised he could add her name to a list to receive food. “I’m sorry, but I thought about getting food and I never did,” said she, who asked to remain anonymous for her safety.
Before the violence, Burkina Faso had no specialized services for sexual assault. Humanitarians are now struggling to cope, said Awa Nebie, a gender violence expert at the United Nations Population Fund.
This year, the humanitarian response plan for 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 speak freely about their experiences, but it is inappropriate, she said. And some areas of the country like the Sahel and East regions are difficult to access due to insecurity.
Local government officials say the daily influx of displaced people is depleting resources and putting women at risk, forcing them to venture further into the bush to collect firewood for cooking.
“In the past, women could find resources two or three kilometers (one to two miles) away, but with the increase in numbers, they go further and further and it is very worrying,” said Saidou Wily, head of health services. social assistance in Barsalogho.
The government has increased security in the city and is advising women not to go into the bush alone.
However, mothers trying to feed their children say they have no choice.
Last year, a 40-year-old woman, mother of seven, was raped by two masked men who dragged her to an abandoned farmhouse while she tried to return to her city in the Sahel region to get food, she said.
Now that she lives in Kaya, she is very afraid to leave again, but she has no money to support her family.
“I think about it a lot and I don’t even know what I’m thinking about, I just cry,” she said. “It is a misery.”