Does Burkina Faso's New Military Approach Risk Terrorism?

Without proper supervision and control, the use of 50,000 armed civilian auxiliaries could aggravate security problems, write Hassane Koné and Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné for the Institute for Security Studies.

The auxilliary forces joined the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) to fight the violent extremists currently occupying nearly half of the country. The recruitment campaign, launched in October 2022 by Burkina Faso's authorities after the 30 September coup, ended on 18 November. More than 90 000 applications were received, and those selected will undergo 14 days of military training.

Concern has been expressed over the future of the thousands of VDP recruits who may serve as a pool for future recruitment of soldiers but who  are unlikely to be integrated into the army, leading to a large number of uncontrolled armed civilians.

This comes in the wake of a call by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk for a probe into the killings of 28 men in the town of Nouna. Non-governmental rights organization Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization said that the victims belonged to a traditional hunting community called the Dozo, who were targeted "on the basis of appearance and stigmatization."