Since 2020, when suspected jihadists attacked the Kafolo military camp in northeastern Ivory Coast, the army has maintained a powerful presence in the region — and now fresh threats are looming, residents warn.A detailed AFP tour of the region revealed that the military has succeeded in limiting incursions by militant fighters operating from Burkina Faso, across the long border.But officers fear the lull could be temporary, due to what they say are large numbers of jihadists still active just across the frontier.And now locals have an additional threat to contend with: cross-border attacks by Burkina Faso’s civilian militia.The presence of the Ivorian army in the remote and long-neglected northeast, hundreds of kilometres from the economic capital Abidjan, has succeeded in assuaging locals’ concerns — to an extent.”It’s reassuring to have the army here. If they leave the area, I’m going too,” said Adama Ouattara, a youth leader in the northeastern village of Moro Moro.But a military officer, who declined to be named, said the calm was fragile.”We have restored the situation but it could degenerate again at any moment,” the officer said.- Militia fighters ‘everywhere’ -“We are containing the jihadists,” said another military official, pointing to a “network of camps, posts and military positions” erected in the bush all along the porous, 600-kilometre (370-mile) border.”But the jihadists are deeply embedded in Burkina Faso. Many villages are occupied there. The threat still exists.”The military government in Burkina “would have us believe that things are going well… but things are not going well at all over there,” he said. “People are dying in large numbers.”Meanwhile, Burkinabe militia members are often accused of rights abuses against civilians, not only in Burkina itself but now also in Ivory Coast.These Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland (VDF) were set up to help Burkina Faso’s army fight the insurgency that has plagued that west African country since 2015.In August, they kidnapped six Ivorian civil servants visiting a small border village and took them to Burkina Faso, locals said.”You can come across VDPs everywhere along this border,” said veterinary inspector Vincent Baret. “As a civil servant, I can’t go out into the bush.”Our soldiers have to deal with VDPs every day. They’re just illiterate militiamen but they keep us busy and they worry us more than the jihadis now.”- Wary locals -No group claimed responsibility for the raid that killed 14 soldiers at the Kafolo army camp on the edge of the Bounkani region in June 2020, but authorities suspect the assailants were Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists from Burkina Faso.Two more soldiers were killed in the northeast in March 2021 but there have been no major attacks blamed on Islamist militants since.The situation “is worrying but under control”, Defence Minister Tene Birahima Ouattara said in August.Life appears to have returned to normal in the northeast — apart from the visible military presence.The Kafolo camp has been razed to the ground to make way for a future vegetable market.When AFP toured the region — still classed as a “red” danger zone by western governments — villagers were working in their fields and council workers in high-visibility jackets were laying tarmac on two roads.Locals remained wary, though.”We stop work in the middle of the afternoon. We never drive at night,” confided one.”The jihadists are camped in the village of Alidougou, just on the Burkina side of the river, three kilometres away,” said another.”Before, we used to go to Burkina to harvest maize, wheat and cereals… Now we don’t cross the border,” said Abdelrahman Ouattara, a youth group leader in the village of Tougbo.”We’ve also deserted the fields over there. It’s more sensible,” the 42-year-old said.”At one point, the jihadists tried to recruit here, talking to people in the mosques. But we haven’t seen them for a while now.”- Visible security -The Comoe River clearly delimits part of the northeastern frontier between Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso — but the land border is poorly demarcated.For centuries there has been constant trade and trafficking across it. The communities on either side are often from the same ethnic groups and intermingle, and herds of cattle migrate across the vast savannah.For some time, no suspected jihadists have been spotted in the nearby Comoe National Park, security sources told AFP.The apparent calm in the vast park, once teeming with elephants, lions and antelopes, has fuelled local hopes of a resurgence in tourism, despite warnings from Western embassies.”There are good prospects,” said local MP Abdoulaye Karim Diomande. “Security is visible and very dissuasive… and it’s working.”Ivorian soldiers regularly mingle with locals, fishing for information about any suspicious activity or new faces in the area.The region’s main border crossing, at Doropo, was open, and people and bicycles travelled back and forth quietly under the blazing sun.Two children holding hands crossed into Doropo from Burkina Faso and made their way to a hairdresser’s tin-roofed shack.But the calm belies underlying strains.Relations between Ivory Coast and military-ruled Burkina Faso have sunk to a low, each government accusing the other of destabilisation.- Fulani refugees -At the Burkina border, “the police make it difficult. I don’t cross any more. We’re very careful,” said Traore Lacina, the head of the Doropo traders’ association.”Cross-border trade has dropped by almost 50 percent.”Market prices reflect the slump. Once 400 Burkina cows arrived in Ivory Coast every day, but now barely 100 do so and the price per head has risen by almost 40 percent.”The problem now is the VDP. We can’t negotiate with them,” Lacina said.The nomadic Fulani community straddling the border region faces particular difficulties — accused in both countries of collaborating with jihadists and attacked by the VDPs.After the Kafolo attack in 2021, some 200 to 300 Fulani left that village with their herds of cattle, never to return, village head Tiemogo Bamba said.No one knows where they went in this region of huge cross-border cattle-grazing.At the same time, “thousands of Fulani refugees” have fled from Burkina Faso to Ivory Coast in recent years to escape attacks by the VDPs, community representative Diko Abderhaman told AFP.Ivory Coast is home to nearly 70,000 displaced Burkinabes, including 35,000 in the Bounkani region alone, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.It says these mass influxes put pressure on local resources and sometimes exacerbate community tensions and prejudices.”The arrival of the asylum seekers frightened us. There were terrorists among them,” claimed Doropo shopkeeper Angeline Som.- ‘We are the same people’ -Accusations of collusion with armed groups fly in both directions.Burkinabe citizens living in northeastern Ivory Coast are accused of crossing the border to enlist with the VDPs.Young Ivorians from the north also cross to register with the VDPs, a security official who asked to remain anonymous told AFP.One local journalist, who also asked not to be identified, said the main danger was no longer Islamist militants but the VDPs and destabilisation by the junta in Burkina.”The jihadist problem is under control in Bouna,” he said of the capital of Bounkani region.”The danger now is the VDPs, squabbles with Burkina and… agents of the Burkinabe junta spreading fake news here.”In the midst of the turmoil, ordinary people on both sides of the shared border try simply to live a normal life.”We are the same people,” said Sigue Ouattara, the chief of the Koulango ethnic community. “But people are afraid now, so it’s better for everyone to stay at home.”
