March 12 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Civil organizations in Burkina Faso have denounced this Sunday the deaths of around twenty civilians allegedly at the hands of the paramilitary force of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP) in the community of Rollo, in the north-central part of the country.
According to the secretary of the organization of the Collective against Impunity, Daouda Diallo, dozens of vehicles with armed men on board dressed in the same uniform as the Burkina Faso Armed Forces broke into the town of Toessin-Foulbè last Wednesday, where they carried out the slaughter first thing in the morning.
The VDP were created almost exactly two years ago by the then Burkinabe president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, for the fight against terrorist activities. What began as a volunteer force has become a paramilitary group accused of committing several massacres in the country.
“After rounding up all the inhabitants, they took all the men out of the group, who were executed in cold blood,” Diallo told Radio France Internationale (RFI). According to the secretary, among the assailants there were “civilians” identified as members of this paramilitary force, which gave orders that no one bury those executed.
“After verifying and comparing the various sources, we consider it useful to draw the attention of the Burkina Faso authorities to launch a rapid investigation into this situation and to assure the civilian population that our own combat forces are not there to put them in danger,” he added.
