Tragedy in Barsalogho, how defensive trenches became the place of many victims

1 October 2024 7 minutes Author: Cyber Witcher

The jihadist attack on civilians in Barsalogho, which has become a symbol of instability in Burkina Faso, is described in detail. The unarmed population became the victims of a brutal attack, and the defensive ditches that were supposed to protect the inhabitants turned into a mass grave. The situation is complicated by the lack of an effective military response and the worsening humanitarian crisis, which requires an immediate international response to protect the civilian population.

Chronicle of the tragedy in Barsalogho

Videos circulating online captured the moment militants killed more than 100 unarmed residents of Barsalogho, Burkina Faso, who were digging trenches to defend the town. Satellite images confirm that new trenches were dug after the massacre. A local collective accuses the army of forcing civilians to work when an attack by al-Qaeda-linked jihadists took place. Although the government has not yet confirmed the exact number of dead, satellite data and geolocation videos confirm the scale of the tragedy.

The city of Barsalog is located less than 150 km from the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou.

Motorcycles Approach

On Saturday morning, August 24, armed men on motorcycles approached the outskirts of Barsalog, where civilians were digging defensive trenches. One of the videos, shot by a JNIM operative, captured the moment when more than twenty motorcycles raced towards the trenches. Upon arrival, the militants hurried and continued to approach the trenches, opening fire with automatic weapons. Other videos show the aftermath of the attack, including executions and bodies in trenches, but some of this footage, allegedly taken elsewhere, has not yet been positively identified.

The path of the militant captured on video as he moved towards the trenches on the eastern side of Barsalog. Geolocation for three keyframes is shown using trees and surface textures for reference: 0:09 ( 13.42773,-1.01683 ), 0:26 ( 13.42724,-1.01750 ) and 1:47 ( 13.42804,-1.01992 ). Background SkySat satellite image on August 29, 2024, taken by Planet Labs PBC.

New fortifications around the city

At the end of 2022, satellite images show the construction of trenches around the western outskirts of Barsalog. By 2023, the fortifications had expanded to larger trenches surrounding the northwestern part of the city, as highlighted by a New York Times researcher.

Extended fortifications were visible in 2023.

Satellite images from March 17, 2024, obtained from Airbus and available through Google Earth Pro, show trenches near Barsaloggo. Additional PlanetScope images from August 22, 2024 indicate that construction work on these trenches continued. SAR data received on August 28 confirms the appearance of two new trenches. After the jihadist attack, another 3.75 km of defensive structures were built. This data helps to further analyze the events in the region and is available to researchers under the CC-BY 4.0 license.

Overview of trench development around Barsalog from 2022 to September 2, 2024. The location of the video, geolocated by Bellingcat, is marked in red. Background satellite images from Google Earth taken in February and March 2024.

The video reveals more details of the attack

One JNIM video shows militants carrying out execution-style killings by shooting people lying in trenches at close range. One man in a trench is seen trying to escape when he is shot in the back. Several bodies can be seen in piles scattered along the trenches.

Bodies are still shown (blurred) lying along the newly dug trenches, with JNIM militants firing into the trench.

In August 2024, JNIM militants released a video lasting about three minutes showing at least 124 bodies of civilians near trenches. Shovels and digging tools are visible in the frame, and the dead are not in military uniform and without weapons. The video was geolocated to the east of Barsaloggo, where the trench widening process is also visible. Images from Google Earth Pro and SkySat helped pinpoint the scene, which is about 3.8 km east of the city center.

Annotated image showing a comparison between a JNIM video frame, Google Earth and Planet Labs PBC images. Two trees (red and magenta) are visible in all three images, and a recently constructed trench (blue) is visible in the video as well as in recent Planet Labs images.

A telephone pole is also briefly visible in the aftermath footage. We used this additional visual cue to confirm geolocation.

The confirmation of geolocation is a telephone pole that casts a shadow visible on Google Earth images. Google Earth image taken on March 17, 2024.

In another video, militants are seen moving around the line of trenches towards Barsaloy to the sounds of gunfire. This video shows over 110 motorcycles geolocated by Bellingcat to the same trench north of the road to Nyang.

Geolocation of police video showing over 110 motorcycles around a trench east of Barsalog (13.4263, -1.0229 ). Also visible is the tree and pole used to geolocate the previous video. Satellite images taken on August 29 by Planet Labs PBC.

According to reports, the attackers arrived at the trenches around 10 a.m., as evidenced by the direction of the shadows in the video. However, it was not possible to determine the exact time.

The widely shared video was actually shot in neighboring Mali

In addition to the footage released by JNIM, Bellingcat discovered that another video shared online and cited in media reports purporting to show the aftermath of the August 24 attack was actually filmed in neighboring Mali in a separate incident.

By extracting keyframes from the video using ffmpeg and reverse image search by one of the keyframes, we determined that the video was posted online prior to the Barsalogho attack. User X @WarWatchs posted on August 18, 2024 that the video showed the aftermath of another JNIM attack in Melguet, Mali, a town near the border with Mauritania, hundreds of kilometers from Barsalog.

Video posted by @WarWatchs on August 18, 2024, before the attack on Barsalog

A Google search for the keywords JNIM and Melgué led us to an older post by France 24 journalist and Sahel expert Wassim Nasr, which includes a video taken at the same location but from a different angle.

Video posted by @SimNasr from Mali.

Using two videos, it was established that the widely circulated video of the events in Barsaloggo was actually filmed in Melga. This was made possible by the identification of several buildings and a hill that match Wassim Nasr’s video. This helped to confirm that the scene belongs to a different region, filmed in Mali, and not in Burkina Faso.

Left: Wassim Nasr video panorama. Right: Video posted by @WarWatchs. A building with brown walls (red arrows) can be seen in both videos. In the right panorama you can see a bit of the Hesco barrier, which can also be seen in the background in Nasr’s video (yellow arrows).
Left: A screenshot of the video posted by Wassim Nasr. Right: Video posted by @WarWatchs. Each adjacent arrow points to the same object seen in two separate videos. Object descriptions: tree (green arrow), building on the right (red arrow), building on the left (turquoise arrow), hut or riser (purple arrow).

The Russian-language Telegram channel @Departamente, dedicated to the conflict in the Sahel countries, also shared videos taken by JNIM fighters at the scene of the attack.

Through its Az-Zallaqa media unit, JNIM confirmed that they attacked military positions in Melgué and the vehicles in the Az-Zallaqa photos match the vehicles in the video that @Departamente posted on Telegram.

JNIM attack pattern

The civilian deaths in Barsaloggo are yet another tragedy in the conflict between the Burkina Faso government and jihadist groups such as JNIM. The official death toll has not been confirmed, with various sources, including the UN and the CJB, giving figures ranging from 200 to 400 dead. JNIM claimed responsibility for the killing of 300 people, claiming that all were militiamen, although the videos did not show weapons near the dead. The conflict has been ongoing since 2016, and many cities are under siege by the militants.

The information is taken from Bellingcat’s open sources

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