Ouagadougou, Feb 1, 2019 – Authorities in Burkina Faso told mining companies on Friday to toughen up “anti-jihadist” security measures in the wake of the kidnapping and killing of a Canadian geologist last month. The body of Kirk Woodman was discovered with gunshot wounds on January 16 after he was snatched from a remote gold mine in the country’s northeast, near the Niger and Mali border. “Faced with a security constraint that has hardened, the authorities of our country have advocated a series of security measures,” the security ministry said in a statement. “All measures will be taken after meetings with security specialists from each mining company,” it added.
The building of barracks at industrial mines and deployment of military personnel are among the measures envisaged, the ministry said. The mining sector has recorded nine attacks resulting in death, injury or property damage since September 2017. Other kidnappings in the mining sector include another Canadian, an Indian and a South African working at the northern Inata gold mine, and a Romanian based at the huge Tambao manganese mine.
Burkina Faso is in the front line of a jihadist rebellion in the Sahel, a vast, dusty region on the southern rim of the Sahara. Canada has 250 soldiers and eight army helicopters deployed in neighbouring Mali as part of a UN peacekeeping mission. After chaos engulfed Libya in 2011, an Islamist insurgency gained ground in northern Mali, while Boko Haram rose in northern Nigeria. Jihadist raids began in northern Burkina Faso in 2015 before spreading to the east, near the border with Togo and Benin. Most of the attacks have been attributed to Ansarul Islam and the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM). Smaller groups are also active, with the overall number of fighters estimated to be in the hundreds, according to security sources.
The groups are believed to be responsible for more than 270 deaths since 2015. Ouagadougou has been hit three times, including a coordinated attack last March that targeted the French embassy and devastated the country’s military headquarters.
By AFP
