Scouts in Burkina Faso Murdered, One in Front of Altar, Another in Front of Mary’s Statue

He added, “However, two of these young people, the scouts from Débé, returned alone without avoiding the area controlled by the terrorists. So they were discovered and held by the armed groups. They took them back to their village, ordered the church to open, and shot dead one of the young people in front of the altar, the other in front of the statue of Mary.” 

According to Bishop Ky, the young people were murdered first and foremost because of their disobedience to the orders of the terrorists, who had prescribed the route to Tougan, and secondly due to their membership of the scouts, who had, despite a ban, continued their activities in the village. 

Their scouting activities, the Catholic Bishop said, gave them the appearance of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland (VDP), a group set up by the Burkinabe government to support the army and the police in the fight against the terrorists.

The Bishop of Dédougou told ACN that following the desecration of the church caused by the murders of the two young people, the church was closed and the Blessed Sacrament moved to another place “until a Mass of atonement can be celebrated.” 

The measure, he said, angered the terrorists who came back to punish residents of Débé.

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A Christian who fled from the village shared with the Bishop, “Three weeks after the murder of the two young people, armed men came back and asked us to pray in the church, even though it was desecrated. We refused, and that was why we were driven out of the village.”

In the middle of October, the terrorists are said to have given the Christians of Débé a 72-hour ultimatum to leave their village. 

“There has never been anything like this before,” Bishop Ky told ACN, and added, “Up until now the whole village was driven out, not just the members of a particular religion.”

For almost a decade, Burkina Faso has been subjected to Islamist-linked terrorism.

Bishop Ky told ACN that terrorist attacks began in the North of Burkina Faso and are more common in some regions than others.

No province of the country, however, has been spared, the Catholic Bishop said, adding that the terrorists, who in Burkina Faso are called ‘unidentified armed men’, are having a decisive influence on the daily lives of the inhabitants of some villages. 

The terrorists, Bishop Ky said, force men to wear trousers to their ankles and women to wear long clothes and veils. 

“The population lives according to the rules imposed by the terrorists out of fear of punishment, which can even mean execution,” the Bishop, who has been at the helm of Dédougou Diocese since his Episcopal Ordination in July 2018 said.

Many towns and villages in Burkina Faso now stand empty because of the expulsions caused by the terrorists, Bishop Ky further said, adding that internally displaced people in the country roam the streets with all their worldly goods looking for somewhere to stay. 

The Bishop shared that in the Diocese of Dédougou, there are hundreds of thousands of them, and the life of the Church is deeply affected.

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“The State is doing everything it can to root out evil and drive out the terrorists. We know, however, that the solution cannot be a purely military one,” he said, and added, “We ask for prayer and implore the Lord to send peace to Burkina Faso, to West Africa and to the whole world.”

Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.