Siege of Djibo | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso and Insurgency in the Maghreb (2002–present) | |||||
![]() World Food Programme helicopter landing in besieged Djibo, September 2022 | |||||
| |||||
Belligerents | |||||
![]() ![]() Supported by: ![]() | |||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||
![]() |
Jafar Dicko (Ansar ul Islam)[7] Tidiane Djibrilou Dicko † (JNIM)[5] | ||||
Units involved | |||||
Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP)[10] French Air Force[1] (until February 2023) |
Several JNIM groups[11]
| ||||
Location within Burkina Faso |
The siege of Djibo[12] is an ongoing blockade of the city of Djibo in Burkina Faso by several factions of Jihadist Islamist rebels. The siege began in February 2022, and is part of the Jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso.
Djibo is located in Burkina Faso's north, an area which is one of the centers of Jihadist rebel activity. Since the start of the Jihadist insurgency in 2015, the city was gradually isolated from the rest of the country as the rebels increased their attacks. From early 2022, the rebels organized a large-scale blockade by first evicting villagers from the territories around Djibo, forcing the refugees to seek shelter in the settlement. They then began to attack the local infrastructure, prevented people from leaving Djibo, and ambushed supply convoys to the city, subjecting its inhabitants to starvation. Though the Burkinabé security forces have been able to occasionally transport new supplies to Djibo, the situation of the encircled population became increasingly difficult as months passed. Negotiations between government representatives and insurgents, aimed at ending the siege peacefully, were sabotaged by pro-government militias. By early 2023, the blockade had been strengthened to the point that Djibo was mainly supplied via airlift.
rfi
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).