Some 700 Muslim imams and preachers in Burkina Faso on Monday denounced “religious and ethnic intoleranceafter calls for murder against the Fulani of this country plagued by jihadist violence.
“We, Burkinabe, play a pernicious self-destructive role (…) by spreading messages inciting religious and ethnic intolerance which can be sources of extremely violent clashes“, indicates a statement by Moussa Kouanda, president of the Federation of Islamic Associations of Burkina (FAIB), published at the end of a seminar which brought together in Ouagadougou more than 700 imams and preachers.
“Return to security and peace”
The statement adds that it “translates into hateful and violent speech, particularly in the media and (on) so-called social networks“. “Under these conditions, how can we be united in the face of adversity? How can we generate the synergies needed for nation building?asks the FAIB, urging people toto surpass oneself to give a chance of survival to the nation” who “is living through some of the darkest days in its history“.
The FAIB instructed imams and preachers to work for “promote national reconciliation and the restoration of social cohesion” and “stimulate a general mobilization for the only fight that is worth today: a multifaceted and relentless struggle to restore the entirety of our territory, for the return of security and peace“. This declaration comes after calls for hatred and murder of the Fulani of Burkina Faso, assimilated to the armed jihadist groups which have bloodied the country since 2015 and whose members come from the Fulani community.
More frequent attacks
Calls made on social networks, mainly WhatsApp, which raise fears of an outbreak of violence that could lead to civil war and which led the government resulting from a coup in January to condemn them in the strongest terms. Noting that he “is about direct and active calls for murder, mass shootings, ethnic cleansing and sedition“, the government considers that it is necessary “act resolutely and firmly before the irreparable happens“.
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Burkina Faso, where the Muslim community is the majority, is facing increasingly frequent and deadly attacks attributed to armed jihadist groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. First concentrated in the north of the country before affecting other regions, these attacks have since 2015 killed thousands and displaced some two million in this country where soldiers took power in January promising to make the fight against jihadists their priority.
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