Burkina Faso Has Recruited 5,000 Soldiers To Fight Jihadists

Burkina Faso announced a recruitment campaign for 5,000 soldiers to serve in the army for at least five years to help the government fight extremists.
Since 2015, the country, one of the poorest in the world, has been fighting a deadly insurgency.
“An unprecedented recruitment of 5,000 non-commissioned soldiers for the national armed forces, to serve for at least five years in their military zone of recruitment,” Defence Minister Colonel Major Kassoum Coulibaly said in a statement.

The minister stated that the recruitment of young male troops will take place from February 28 to March 7, and that enlistees must have been born between January 1, 1988, and December 31, 2003.

Of Burkina Faso’s 13 regions, those that are hotspots for violence will have higher quotas for recruitment — including the western Boucle du Mouhoun region and the Sahel in the north.

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This is the third time in less than a year that the Burkinabe army has organised such a drive. In April 2022, 3,000 soldiers were recruited, with the process launched again in October.

Burkina Faso has been rocked by two coups since the start of the year, with each new leader accusing the previous of having failed to quell the violence.
In seven years, more than 1,000 civilians and soldiers have been killed, according to NGOs, and some two million people internally displaced.

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Captain Ibrahim Traore — the country’s transitional president, who staged the most recent coup on September 30 — has set a goal of recapturing 40 percent of Burkina Faso’s territory, which is controlled by jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Shortly after seizing power, he launched a campaign to recruit so-called civilian defence volunteers.

AFP

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