| March 2023 Aorema massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part of Jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso | |
| Location | Aorema, Ouahigouya Department, Yatenga Province, Burkina Faso |
| Date | March 2, 2023 |
| Deaths | 14 |
| Perpetrator |  Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin |
On March 2, 2023, jihadists from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) attacked the village of Aorema, Yatenga Province, Burkina Faso. They killed fourteen civilians.
Much of northern Burkina Faso has been the frontline of an insurgency waged by Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara since 2015, with these groups intensifying their attacks on civilians seen as sympathetic to the government since 2019. [1] These jihadist groups had been known to invade Aorema multiple times over the past few years demanding zakat and that the youth not enter restaurants. [2]
On March 2, JNIM fighters entered a restaurant in Aorema where a bunch of youth were gathered and fired indiscriminately on them. [2] Seven people were killed in the restaurant on the spot, and three died in their homes from stray bullets. [3] [4] Fourteen people were killed in the attacks, including those who died of their injuries. [1] In response to the attack, Burkinabe authorities established a province-wide curfew from 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. until March 31 the next day. Burkinabe officials also stated that they were conducting counter-terrorism operations to find the perpetrators. [3]
JNIM attacked Aorema again on April 16, 2023, killing forty people and injuring 33 others. Many of the dead were VDP civilian volunteers sent to the area to fight JNIM. [5] While no group claimed responsibility for the March massacre, JNIM was suspected of the attack. [6]
Ansarul Islam is a militant Islamist group active in Burkina Faso and in Mali. It was founded by Boureima Dicko, also known as Ibrahim Malam Dicko, and it is the first native Jihadi group in Burkina Faso. The group cooperates closely with Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM).
On January 10, 2019, Ansarul Islam militants killed 20 civilians in Gasseliki, Burkina Faso. The attack came in the wake of a massacre perpetrated by the Koglweogo in Yirgou, in Barsalogho department, just days earlier.
On September 26, 2022, a convoy bound for the besieged city of Djibo in northern Burkina Faso was attacked by armed gunmen, killing 27 soldiers and 10 civilians. The Mali-based jihadist group Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) claimed responsibility for the attack. The Gaskinde attack was a key reason for the September 30 coup in Burkina Faso, as many frontline officers were disgruntled about Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba's handling of the jihadist insurgency.
On October 13, 2022, an IED hit a civilian bus travelling along the Bandiagara-Goundaka highway in rural Mali, killing 10 civilians and injuring dozens more. The attack was alleged to be coordinated by Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM).
On March 20, 2022, unknown jihadists ambushed Burkinabe soldiers in Natiaboani, Gourma Province, Burkina Faso, killing thirteen soldiers and an unknown number of jihadists.
On December 30, 2022, dozo militants affiliated with the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) killed over 88 civilians in Nouna, Burkina Faso.
On October 29, 2022, gunmen from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin ambushed a convoy of Burkinabé soldiers near the village of Kikideni while they were on their way from Fada N'gourma to Natiaboani, Est Region, Burkina Faso.
On January 12 and 13, 2023, jihadists kidnapped sixty-six people in two separate incidents near Arbinda, Burkina Faso. The abducted civilians were eventually freed by the Burkinabe military on January 20. The kidnappings were the first of their kind to target women during the insurgency.
On January 11, 2023, unknown jihadists killed nine civilians at a mosque in Goulgountou, Burkina Faso.
On January 28, 2023, suspected Islamic State jihadists attacked Burkinabe soldiers and Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) militiamen in the city of Falagountou, Burkina Faso.
On January 28, 2023, suspected Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin militants stopped two buses headed from Banfora to Mangodara near the village of Linguekoro, Comoé Province, Burkina Faso, and killed fifteen passengers.
On May 30, 2020, unknown militants ambushed an aid convoy escorted by Burkinabe gendarmes near the town of Barsalogho as it was returning from delivering food to civilians in Sanmatenga Province, Burkina Faso. Thirteen people were killed and forty others were wounded in the attack.
On February 28, 2024, jihadists from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin attacked the Malian military camp in Kwala, a village near Mourdiah, Mali. The attack was the first suicide car bombing by the group since 2022, and was part of a campaign by JNIM to expand influence in Koulikoro Region. Over thirty Malian soldiers were killed in the attack.
On May 26, 2024, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) jihadists attacked a Malian Army and Wagner Group base in Mourdiah, Koulikoro Region, Mali. The attack was repelled, and dozens of jihadists were killed.
The JNIM-ISGS war is an ongoing armed conflict between Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State – Sahil Province (ISGS), the Sahelian branches of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State respectively, and, to some extent, Islamic State – Algeria Province (ISAP). Since ISGS' formation in October 2016 and the creation of the JNIM coalition in 2017, the two groups had been described as the Sahelien exception or Sahelien anomaly: despite the global war between al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates since the latter's splinter from the former in 2014, both ISGS and JNIM have ignored each other and in rare cases worked together against Malian, Nigerien, Burkinabe, French, and international governments and non-Islamist militias until 2020.
On July 31, 2021, jihadists from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin ambushed Nigerien forces near Torodi, Tillabéri Region, Niger, killing 18 Nigerien soldiers.
An attack on 24 August 2024 by Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) terrorists, an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist organization, killed hundreds of soldiers of the Burkina Faso Armed Forces, as well as civilians who were digging defensive trenches in the Barsalogho Department of northern Burkina Faso. The attack is part of an ongoing jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso and the Sahel. It is the deadliest attack in the country's history.
On August 15, 2023, jihadists from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) ambushed Nigerien soldiers near Koutougou, a village on the border between Niger and Mali. The ambush killed at least seventeen Nigerien soldiers, and was the first major attack by a jihadist group on Nigerien forces since the 2023 Nigerien coup d'état.
On April 15, 2023, jihadists from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin attacked a group of Burkinabe soldiers and civilian volunteers in the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) near Aorema, Yatenga Province, Burkina Faso, killing forty soldiers and VDP and injuring over thirty others. The attack occurred a month after a massacre against civilians by JNIM in Aorema that killed fourteen. Following the attack, Burkinabe soldiers searching for the perpetrators of the April attack killed over 130 civilians in the Karma massacre.