Humanitarian Aid Crisis in Enclaved Areas of Burkina Faso

Introduction

Burkina Faso remains one of the world’s most neglected displacement crises. Over 2 million people, or 10 percent of Burkina Faso’s population, are internally displaced. To address the humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso, especially in enclaved areas of the country, international actors must press the government to take a less military-driven approach and increase support for aid alternatives that can reach isolated areas, including the UN’s Humanitarian Air Service.

Blockades by jihadist groups continue to prevent humanitarian aid actors from accessing large portions of the country. In these enclaves, roads are blocked using checkpoints, inhibiting civilian movement and preventing traders and humanitarian groups from bringing food and other essential goods into towns. Jihadist groups place improvised explosive devices on roads to dissuade attempts at traveling and utilize other violent attacks as a means to assert control and spark fear among the civilian population. This has exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation and may constitute war crimes.

As the government struggles to respond to rising Islamic insurgency in the northern part of the country, two military leaders have seized power in separate coups in the past two years. Despite his “security first” approach, the administration of current president Ibrahim Traoré has seen rapidly increasing levels of violence by armed groups and allegations of human rights abuses committed by state forces themselves. 

This volatile security situation now intersects with the impacts of climate change, creating a dire humanitarian crisis. In the Central Sahel, 78 percent of the population relies on agriculture and herding for their livelihoods. In Burkina Faso, violence has uprooted people from their homes, disrupted crop production and the livestock industry, and destroyed vital infrastructure – all while temperatures climb 1.5 times higher than in other regions of the world and thousands of kilometers of arable land are lost each year to desertification. 

Background

Over 40 percent of Burkinabés live below the poverty line, and increasing violence and weather patterns have led to exceptionally low crop yields, exacerbating food insecurity. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification estimates that between August 2023 and July 2024, over 480,000 children aged 6 to 59 months will face elevated acute malnutrition. Rather than investing in an end to this hunger crisis, the Burkinabe government continues to prioritize defense spending over the needs of the civilian populations. Burkina Faso’s defense budget increased from $562 million in 2022 to over $826 million in 2023. In reality, this budget was exceeded. In June 2024, the Minister of Economy, Aboubakar Nacanabo, revealed that over $1 billion was spent on defense equipment in 2023 to aid the fight against terrorism. This shifting in prioritization of funds has led to school closures, dire humanitarian needs going unmet, and a weakened healthcare system amid a dengue fever outbreak. 

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) yearly humanitarian response plans for the country continue to go severely underfunded, with a decline in funding from 2022 to 2024 – going from 43.6 percent funded to only 27 percent of the humanitarian appeal. This is coupled with a number of concerning trends in metrics like malnutrition – from 2022 to 2023, levels of childhood acute malnutrition in Burkina Faso increased by more than 50 percent. Additionally, rising levels of violence, including the killing of two aid workers in February 2023, caused some humanitarian responses to be halted. Doctors Without Borders announced that they were suspending operations in Burkina Faso and only responding to life-threatening emergencies, although their operations were later restarted. 

Due to this conflict with the government, non-state armed groups such as ISIS and JNIM have blockaded areas of Burkina Faso to assert power, particularly in regions where they believe that residents are loyal to the military junta. The blockades not only prevent the flow of food and supplies, but also heavily limit freedom of movement, inhibiting access to healthcare and education. Humanitarian aid convoys are attacked, and transportation requires armed guards. Military convoys periodically force their way through the blockades, but are often ambushed by armed factions, causing injury and death. Jihadist groups use scattered explosives and checkpoints to make routes into blockaded enclaves more dangerous, further detouring aid convoys trying to deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance. 

Around 40 of these enclaves are currently blockaded, trapping more than 2 million people and covering over half of the country’s territory, including major population centers. Djibo, a town of 60,000 in northern Burkina Faso, is considered the most serious area of concern, being under blockade since March 2022. A 2019 law prohibited humanitarian organizations and local communities from negotiating with jihadist groups, which has further inhibited aid access to blockaded enclaves and made it nearly impossible for reporters to gather information on the human rights situation. 

These blockades have intensified the humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso. Citizens trapped in blockaded areas report long periods of time without food or water. Profiteering merchants inflate prices of goods far beyond the capabilities of the average resident. Jihadist groups reportedly use tactics like sabotaging water facilities and poisoning wells. Malnutrition is common, and many of those trapped develop illnesses due to lack of clean and safe water. Residents of blockaded areas have shifted their diets to include forest products and wild fruits and vegetables rather than harvested foods. Their attempts to grow new crops are inhibited by security concerns – many blockaded towns have stopped growing tall plants because jihadists use them to hide, instead opting for beans, peanuts, and cucumbers. 

Traveling and delivering aid by road has become increasingly risky due to the threat of armed attacks, and requires a military escort. The alternative, delivering aid by air, is prohibitively expensive and particularly difficult due to severe underfunding. The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), operating under the World Food Programme, delivers aid to over 1.1 million people in Burkina Faso’s blockaded regions, but it costs 12 times more than delivering aid by land, and is threatened by insufficient funding – as of February 2024, the World Food Programme stated that UNHAS lacked $55 million needed to operate in the next six months. Additionally,  UNHAS employs only one cargo helicopter in the area, while the number of enclaved areas is steadily increasing – making air deliveries a decreasingly practical solution for rising humanitarian needs. 20 to 25 helicopter flights are needed per month to provide only 12 to 15 percent of the blockaded populations with a fraction of their nutrition needs. Additionally, aid deliveries via air are still affected by the tumultuous security landscape in Burkina Faso – UNHAS suspended flights temporarily in August 2023 and October 2023 after being targeted by gunfire. 

As a result of these challenges, aid deliveries only arrive every few months to each blockaded area, and certain areas receive more aid than others. Within the enclaved areas, 80 percent of humanitarian interventions in 2023 focused on 10 towns, with Djibo receiving the most aid. Alarmingly, 11 blockaded towns received no aid at all in 2023. This humanitarian situation continues to have severe consequences for women and children particularly. From 2022 to 2023, levels of child acute malnutrition rose by over 50 percent. Over 630,000 children under the age of five are estimated to face chronic malnutrition this year, and 172,000 suffer from a severe form of malnutrition known as wasting. This can lead to stunted growth, weak immune systems, and a higher risk of death from common childhood illnesses. 

With the dire humanitarian situation in the rest of Burkina Faso, and limited humanitarian funding, aid organizations are often forced to focus their efforts on non-enclaved areas, where aid can be delivered more cheaply and efficiently and have a higher chance of reaching the intended recipients. This creates a double punishment for residents of blockaded areas, exacerbating the crisis. 

In the absence of a political solution to reopen roads to the blockaded areas, the international community must fund the UN’s Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS). While unblocking roads to the enclaved areas should be prioritized as the most effective solution, UNHAS presents an essential lifeline if this is not possible, and only has funding to operate until June 3, 2024. Donors should provide full coverage of UNHAS Burkina Faso’s $31 million budget for 2024.and the

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