Sahel crisis deepens as Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger become news blackhole

Photos taken by witnesses are sent via encrypted messages. They show dozens of corpses piled up, bodies riddled with bullets, in a village in northern Burkina Faso. Women on one side, some carrying their babies on their backs, lie on the ground near their homes. In another, a row of small boys executed. This was last February, near Ouahigouya, multiple sources confirm.

In Burkina Faso, images of massacres attributed to the army are increasingly surfacing. In the press, investigations into these now nearly daily acts of violence are becoming scarce.

In the Sahel, the region is a veritable news black hole that has become a no-go zone for journalists, warns the NGO Reporters Without Borders. Since the coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, Western journalists have been unable to enter these three countries, now ruled by military juntas, due to a lack of accreditation or entry permits. Expulsions of foreign correspondents, suspensions of especially of French media (including RFI, France 24, Jeune Afrique, Le Monde, and France 2) in Mali and Burkina Faso, and blocked visas for French nationals in Niger… Locally, Sahelian journalists face pressures and threats of arrest.

Zones cut off from the world

In the Sahel, where each side blames the other for massive losses, counting the dead is nearly impossible. The NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled), one of the few organizations collecting and analyzing conflict data in the region, estimates that more than 17,000 civilians have been killed since 2012 and the onset of the crisis in Mali.

"It is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain reliable information in this environment of fear and informational warfare, where propaganda is used by both armed groups and national forces," notes Héni Nsaibia, a researcher at Acled.

In the region, entire areas, either under jihadist control or as military operation zones, are cut off from the world. Since 2013, four European journalists — two French and two Spaniards — have been killed in Mali and Burkina Faso. Kidnapped in 2021 during a report in Gao, Olivier Dubois, a correspondent for French newspaper Libération in Mali, remained in the hands of jihadists from the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM, linked to Al-Qaeda), before being released.

Remote investigation is a puzzle. Many telephone antennas have been sabotaged by fighters to isolate villages. The few reachable sources, often terrified, prefer to speak under the cover of anonymity. In July 2023, Amnesty International estimated that at least 46 localities were besieged by armed groups in Burkina Faso, targeting the few military-organized supply convoys.

In Djibo, a city in northern Burkina Faso under siege for two years, "it's been four months since there has been neither rice nor sugar in the stores. Everything is lacking, medications, fuel… Nor can we go out to cultivate in the fields. Elderly have died of hunger," says a resident reached by phone.

It is even more difficult to understand what is happening in villages where jihadists rule as new masters. They impose Sharia law, mandatory veiling, and corporal punishment for thieves, up to the death penalty.

Massacres by the army

In the Sahel, civilians are the primary victims of the violence. The military rulers, united under the coalition named the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), promise to eradicate "terrorists." Accusations of wrongdoing multiply against the Malian armed forces, supported by mercenaries from the former Russian group Wagner (renamed Africa Corps), allied with the regime. In Niger, the army has acknowledged mistakes during drone strikes in January in a village in the southwest of the country. To bolster its troops, the Burkina Faso junta is betting on the recruitment of 90,000 "volunteers for the defense of the homeland," poorly trained civilian auxiliaries accused of conducting punitive expeditions.

Holdé, Karma, Zaongo… In Burkina Faso, the list of presumed massacres by the army and its auxiliaries grows longer. The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) tries to document the numerous allegations of abuses during military operations. Analysis of photos of corpses, satellite images, geolocation of videos… "We receive many alerts but have to make choices, between the most emblematic cases, the possibility of investigating, and, above all, the protection of sources," details Ilaria Allegrozzi, a researcher for the Sahel at HRW.

Propaganda and disinformation

For the juntas of the Sahel, there is only one truth: theirs. They position themselves as liberators against the West and continuously raise the specter of a "destabilization" threat to tighten their grip on power. In Mali, the government has just suspended the activities of political parties, guilty of "sterile discussions" and "subversion." In videos, their most zealous supporters go as far as threatening death or calling to hunt down the "enemies" of the military. Propaganda and disinformation are in full swing. On national television in Burkina Faso, the news every night relays the "victories" of the army. On social media, trolls and fake media praising the military and Russia proliferate.

In Burkina Faso, following a decree calling for general mobilization in April 2023, more than a dozen journalists, activists, and opponents have been requisitioned to the front after daring to denounce the abuses of power. Arrested in December, a former minister aged 70 reappeared two months later in a video, looking haggard, in military attire, Kalashnikov in hand, on a training ground.

To escape this climate of terror, some have chosen exile. Souleymane (name changed), an activist from Burkina Faso, sought refuge abroad after three months forcibly enrolled in a military camp. He recounts being abducted by "hooded men," in civilian clothes and armed, then taken to a villa in the capital where "soldiers" beat him, whipped him, and submerged his head underwater. "They told me that if I didn't support the head of state they would kill me, then they took me to go fight," he shares.

In Niger, self-censorship is becoming normalized. "We know there's a red line not to cross, at the risk of being arrested or them going after the family," whispers a journalist. In the region, many are faced with this equation: stay silent, be arrested, or leave. "If I flee, I'll be a traitor," laments this source who prefers, momentarily, to give up writing.

Coups

• Mali has witnessed two coups led by the same group of colonels, in August 2020 and May 2021. The country is now ruled by a junta.

• In Burkina Faso, a coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba overturned President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré on January 23, 2022. On September 30, 2022, a group of soldiers led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré announced the sidelining of the junta leader.

• In Niger, President Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown on July 26, 2023, by a group of soldiers led by the chief of the presidential guard, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, who has been in power since then.