Deadly Attack Near Burkina Faso Border Exposes Security Gaps in Northern Ivory Coast

Unidentified armed men have killed four villagers in northeastern Ivory Coast, with another person missing, in what the military described as the country’s first fatal assault of its kind since 2021.

The strike happened overnight between Sunday and Monday in Difita, a farming settlement just two kilometres from the Burkinabe frontier in the Tehini regionan area long considered vulnerable due to its porous borders with Burkina Faso, where jihadist groups operate freely.

General Lassina Doumbia, the Ivorian army’s chief of staff, confirmed the casualties in a statement, listing “four farmers killed, one resident missing, a woman seriously burnt,” along with several huts torched and livestock stolen.

Spillover Fears from Sahel Insurgencies

The assault has renewed concerns about the spillover of jihadist violence from the Sahel into West African coastal states. Benin and Togo have already recorded increasing attacks in recent years, while Ivory Coast had largely been spared major incidents since 2021.

A government source, contacted by AFP, suggested the incident may have been a revenge attack against locals “suspected of bringing support to Burkina Faso’s Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland,” a civilian force established in 2019 to aid the Burkinabe military against insurgents. The VDP has often faced accusations of committing rights abuses against civilians.

Military Response and Regional Strain

According to the Ivorian army, air and ground troops were deployed in pursuit of the assailants, though the attackers had fled before reinforcements arrived.

The country’s defence minister, Tene Birahima Ouattara, recently admitted security remains a pressing challenge, saying earlier this month: “The situation is worrying but under control.”

Relations between Abidjan and Ouagadougou remain strained since Captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power in Burkina Faso in 2022. Both governments have traded accusations of harbouring opponents or seeking to destabilise one another.

History of Attacks

Ivory Coast previously suffered a major attack in June 2020, when 14 soldiers were killed in Kafolo, followed by another in March 2021 that left two troops dead. The deadliest assault came in 2016, when gunmen stormed Grand-Bassam, a resort town near Abidjan, killing 19 people.

Analysts warn that while attacks have been rare on Ivorian soil in recent years, the Difita killings show that border communities remain exposed.

William Assanvo, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, told AFP: “The fact that we are now witnessing an attack of this nature against civilian populations resulting in deaths, people being intentionally burnt alive, this is new, this is unusual.”

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