“They will strengthen the ranks of the army as part of the fight against terrorism,” the military regime announced yesterday Tuesday.
Burkina Faso this week began recruiting 50,000 “volunteers for the defense of the homeland” (Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie, VDP), who “will strengthen the ranks of the army in the fight against terrorism”, it was announced yesterday Tuesday from the military regime.
“The recruitment of 35,000 community VDPs, or 100 VDPs per community, has begun,” said a press release from the commander of the Homeland Guard and Defense Brigade (BVDP), Colonel Boukare Zougranas, who was also named minister of local government, decentralization and security last night.
“The mission assigned to these community VDPs is to protect, alongside the defense and security forces, the populations and their properties in the communities they come from” from jihadist attacks, the same source clarified.
The recruitment is in addition to that announced on Monday by the BVDP, which intends to form a force of 15,000 VDPs that will be “deployable throughout the national territory”.
The status of VDPs is defined by a law effective from January 21, 2020. They are persons with “citizenship of Burkina Faso”, who have a role “complementary to the defense and security forces”, serve “voluntarily” to defend “their villages or of their place of origin”.
They are provided with 14 days of military training, individual weapons and means of communication.
These paramilitaries are paying an extremely heavy price in jihadist attacks in Burkina Faso, especially in its northern and eastern parts.
There is no public data available on their exact number. Initially, the goal was to recruit 13,000 civilians.
The new mass recruitment comes as 3,000 men are already being drafted into the armed forces to join the fight against the jihadists.
These initiatives were announced after the new coup carried out on September 30 by Captain Ibrahim Traore, with the declared purpose of “recovering the territories occupied by hordes of terrorists”.
On Monday, at least ten soldiers were killed and around fifty others were wounded in a “terrorist attack” in Jibo, a town under siege by the jihadists for three months, in the north of Burkina Faso.
Jihadist organizations control about 40% of the territory.
RES-EMP
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