Another Ignored Genocide of Christians Plagues Burkina Faso

Pictured: Smoke rises from Embassy of France in Burkina Faso, March 2, 2018, during a jihadi terrorist attack that killed up to 28 people. (Image source: VOA)

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• While a total of 12 Islamic terror attacks in Burkina Faso were registered in 2016, nearly 160 were reported in just the first five months of 2019.
• The situation has reached the point where... the mainstream media habitually downplay the religious element whenever Muslims attack Christians, by referring to it as "sectarian strife....
• [T]he militants told everyone to lie down and proceeded to look for Christians by asking for first names or looking for anyone wearing Christian insignia (like crosses). The deadly search yielded four men.... [W]hen they saw crosses, the assailants singled them out. All four were taken aside and executed." – June 27, 2019.
• "There is no Christian anymore in this town [Arbinda]," said a local contact; "... they [terrorists] were looking for Christians. Families who hide Christians are [also] killed. Arbinda had now lost in total no less than 100 people within six months."
• According to a local, "The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused." So "they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead."
• One can only hope that the response of the media and international community will be stronger than their usual one: ignoring the massacres. This slaughter has been already been characterized as a "genocide of Christians." When, then, will the media and the so-called human rights groups finally confront — or at the very least condemn or even report on — these religiously fueled massacres plaguing West Africa?

On Sunday, December 1, 2019, Islamic terrorists raided a Protestant Christian church in Burkina Faso during the service and massacred 14 worshippers. The pastor and several children were among those killed.

This is but the latest of many lethal attacks on the Christian minority of the small nation located in West Africa, a region better known for the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.

Discussing the situation in Burkina Faso — which is approximately 60% Muslim, 23% Christian, and 17% animist or other — the BBC reported that "Jihadist violence has flared in Burkina Faso since 2016.... Fighters affiliated to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group as well as the local Ansarul Islam [Champions of Islam] have been active in the region."

However, while a total of 12 Islamic terror attacks were registered in 2016, nearly 160 were reported in just the first five months of 2019.

Although the mainstream media habitually downplay the religious element whenever Muslims attack Christians — often by referring to it as "sectarian strife" — attacks in Burkina Faso have become so flagrantly based on religion that even the Washington Post published a report on August 21 titled, "Islamist militants are targeting Christians in Burkina Faso": "A spreading Islamist insurgency has transformed Burkina Faso from a peaceful country known for farming, a celebrated film festival and religious tolerance into a hotbed of extremism." The report notes that the jihadis have been checking people's necks for...

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