Months of tension and protests in Burkina Faso culminated in a military takeover on January 24. This political crisis comes as conflict continues in the country, causing violence and displacement and leaving many people struggling to find food, water, shelter, and medical care. Humanitarian organizations have also been hit by the violence, making it extremely challenging to provide much-needed aid.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical teams work in five of the country’s 13 regions and witness the effects of the conflict on people coming for medical care.
Patients need treatment for physical injuries and suffer from the psychological impact of their experiences: witnessing people killed in front of them, their houses and crops burned, their possessions and livelihoods reduced to nothing.
Precarious living conditions put people at higher risk of diseases, including malaria, which affects millions of people every year. Overcrowded living conditions increase exposure to respiratory tract infections, while poor sanitation and water shortages increase the risks of waterborne diseases.
MSF and other organizations are also distributing food, treating children for malnutrition, drilling wells and trucking in water, but many needs remain unmet.
More than 1.5 million people have been forced from their homes
For more than a decade, the central Sahel region—principally Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso—has seen conflict between armed groups, government forces, and international forces. In 2021, Burkina Faso became the region’s hotspot for violence, with a sharp rise in abductions and attacks, such as the attack on Solhan in June 2021 in which 160 people were killed. While major attacks like this one make it onto the international news, smaller scale attacks on local people, health staff and aid workers often go unreported.
More than 1.5 million people out of a country of 20 million have been forced from their homes in the past three years, according to the United Nations. Most of the displacement has occurred in Burkina Faso’s Sahel, Center-North and East regions, but the conflict is progressively engulfing more areas that were previously considered stable.
The violence can flare up very suddenly, so people often flee with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Salamata, now living with her husband and four children in a camp for displaced people in Barsalogho in the Center-North region, told us last year: “One morning, we saw the whole village emptying. Everyone was running, so we took the children and started to run as well. We were barefoot, but we didn’t stop for 35 kilometers (22 miles). It was when we arrived here that we found out that many of our relatives had been killed and our property had been destroyed. We may never see our village again.”
Food and water are running out
The impact of the conflict on local people has become more and more pronounced. Beyond the direct effects of physical violence, many have also lost their homes and livelihoods. For rural communities, fleeing one’s home also means the loss of harvests and livestock. Next season, many people will be unable to plant or harvest any crops. With so many people dependent on farming and herding to feed their families, food availability is a matter of major concern.
In the camps for displaced people, living conditions are often precarious. Shelters are ill-suited to the rainy season, with rudimentary sanitation, and with insufficient drinking water. People in these camps tell us that they often have to walk several miles and then wait for up to six hours to get enough water to drink, cook, and use for washing.
Burkina Faso is a landlocked country with limited rainfall, and the general availability of water is diminishing due to climate change. While local communities do their best to host the massive number of displaced people, the increased demand for water is causing shortages all round.
Medical care is limited due to violence
People need more food, more water, and better access to health care in all the regions currently affected by conflict in Burkina Faso. The shortfall in humanitarian assistance is due to a number of factors, including the lack of funding and—above all—insecurity.
The extreme levels of insecurity often prevent people from traveling to see a doctor, while many people cannot afford transportation to a hospital. At the same time, insecurity often prevents health workers, including MSF teams, from reaching communities in need. MSF staff, as well as staff from other organizations and the Ministry of Health, have been attacked and sometimes kidnapped. We have had ambulances stolen and health centers destroyed. In some locations, improvised explosive devices have been planted on roads, making travel potentially lethal.
Due to these dangers, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of Ministry of Health midwives in the East region and have seen health centers close in the Sahel region following attacks on medical staff. According to the Ministry of Health, as of June 2021, 357 health facilities countrywide were either shut or not fully operational as a result of the violence. There are shortages of medical specialists, including surgeons, anesthetists, and midwives, across all areas of Burkina Faso affected by the conflict.