Three Ghanaians have told the BBC of their involvement in the fighting between Islamist insurgents and the military in neighbouring Burkina Faso, describing scenes of sometimes indiscriminate violence and bloody battles.

“We are always with the dead. In some battles, I’ve seen 40, 50 or 100 dead people,” one of the men told the BBC.

The three, all in their late thirties or early forties, said they had fought in Burkina Faso multiple times since 2018. They crossed the porous 550km-long (340-mile) border between the two countries, without being detected by the security forces.

They denied being primarily motivated by religion or being trained by the jihadists, saying they went to fight to defend civilian communities with whom they had strong family and ethnic ties.

“My elder brother, his wife and children were all killed by the [Burkinabe] army. It pains me a lot. The military came to their community in the forest. They killed all of them, a whole household, including 29 people,” one of the men said.

But another of the men did articulate religious zeal, saying: “If you die while fighting with the jihadists, then you are driving to jannah (an Islamic word for paradise), on the path of the righteous.”

Challenged over whether they had taken part in civilian attacks, the men were divided.

One denied doing so, but another conceded that he did.

“Some local people support the military in attacking us, that’s why we have to kill them too,” he said.

“You know… I’m not happy to fight like this. The number of people we kill, the people the military kill, it’s very bad. But this fight has entered our blood,” he added.

All three spoke on condition of anonymity.

The BBC was unable to confirm their claims but they showed us pictures of weapons, described the location of recent conflicts and named jihadist commanders in Burkina Faso.

The BBC was put in touch with the men through contacts at cattle markets in northern Ghana, where jihadist groups are alleged to be recruiting fighters.

In 2022, a France-based NGO, Promediation, said its research showed that the jihadists had recruited between 200 and 300 young Ghanaians.

And the Netherlands Institute of International Relations think-tank, in a report released last July, said the jihadists had “minimal success” recruiting in Ghana.

However, the men offered a different perspective, telling the BBC, in claims that could not be verified, that people from “all parts of Ghana” and from “many” ethnic groups were joining the insurgency in Burkina Faso.

“Some are fighting for jihad. Some are doing it for business,” one of them said.

The financial incentive comes in the form of the plentiful livestock that the jihadists steal from communities driven out of their villages.

“When we attack a community, we take their animals: sometimes 50, sometimes 100,” the BBC was told by one of the men.

The cattle are allegedly brought to northern Ghana, and sold at markets.

The trafficking across the border was confirmed to the BBC by cattle dealers.

It is thought to have become a major income stream for groups like Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate that is the most active jihadist group in Burkina Faso. It also operates in Niger and Mali.

The West African region was described by the UN last year as the epicentre of global jihadist violence.

Source:BBC