Over the past four years, Burkina Faso has fallen into chaos, with gunmen robbing, killing and threatening some of the poorest citizens in this landlocked West African nation, and causing 850,000 to flee their homes. Some of the gunmen are terrorists, loosely allied with the Islamic State or Al Qaeda. Some are bandits. Some are vigilantes. It is seldom spoken of, and the government denies it, but some are soldiers in Burkina Faso’s armed forces. In the name of ridding their country of Islamist extremists and bandits, government security forces are now killing about as many people as jihadists do, according to interviews with human rights campaigners and a security analyst.
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
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