KAYA, Burkina Faso (AP) – A 20-year-old woman could no longer live in her village amid growing violence caused by Islamic extremists. But he had to return and retrieve the family’s cows in the hope that he would sell them.
If her husband went, the jihadists would almost certainly kill him. She went instead 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 northern center of Barsalogho, where she now lives. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual violence.
Burkina Faso’s extremist violence against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group fuels an increase in sexual assaults on women, especially those displaced by attacks. Many are preyed upon as they try to gather things they have left behind.
The violence killed more than 2,000 people last year, according to the Draft Data on the Situation and Events of Armed Conflict. It also displaced more than 1 million people.
In the North Central region of Burkina Faso, cases of sexual assault increased from two to 10 over a three-month period last year, according to a report by humanitarian groups, including the UN. About 85 percent of the survivors were internally displaced people, living mainly in makeshift camps in the towns of Barsalogho and Kaya, he said.
The women in Kaya told the AP that they fear they will be attacked as they go to bring firewood for cooking.
“I will not go more than 4 kilometers outside Kaya to the farm because I am afraid for my safety,” said Kotim Sawadogo. The 37-year-old ran away from Dablo in August and is struggling to afford 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 being killed inside,” said Fatimata Sawadogo, who was displaced last year from Dablo to Kaya and knows the women who were raped by jihadists during agriculture. 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 return the next day to save them, she said.
Aid groups say 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 exacerbated by the lack of economic opportunities for women, the lack of food and shelter for women, and the lack of access to quality health care,” said Jennifer Overton, West Africa’s regional director for Catholic Relief Services.
Earlier this month, a woman in Kaya 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’d eat and I never did,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for her safety.
Prior to the violence, Burkina Faso did not have specialized services focused on sexual assault. Now, humanitarians are struggling to cope, said Awa Nebie, a specialist in gender-based violence 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 against 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, such as the Sahel and East regions, are difficult to access due to insecurity.
Local government officials say the daily influx of displaced people is stressing resources and endangering women, forcing them to venture further into the bush to collect wood for cooking.
“In the past, women could find resources two or three kilometers away, but as the numbers increase, they keep going and it’s very worrying,” said Saidou Wily, head of welfare services in Barsalogho. .
The government has increased security in the city and advises women not to walk alone in the bush.
However, mothers who try to feed their children say they have little choice.
Last year, a 40-year-old mother was raped in a gang by two masked men who dragged her to an abandoned farm while trying to return to her hometown in the Sahel region to get food, she said.
Now living in Kaya, she is too scared to leave again, but has no money to support her family.
“I think about it a lot and I don’t even know what I’m thinking, I’m just crying,” she said. “It’s a mess.”