Clashes between cattle owners and farmers at Manga-Est: Casualties, injuries and serious physical damage

Wednesday August 8th 2007.

In the county of Zoundweogo tension runs high in the villages of Manga-Est in the rural community of Gogo. Since Friday August 3rd, livestock keepers of the Fulani community and Mossi farmers are fighting each other. As a result there have been casualties, injuries and important material damage.

The news has travelled throughout the county with the speed of lightning: “Mossi and Fulani are fighting at Manga-Est” was the word that reached us on the evening of Friday the 3rd in Manga. Manga is the provincial capital of Zoundweogo. Manga-Est, 25 km from Manga, is an agropastoral area, set up under the physical planning project for the Volta river basin (AVV) in 1980, where livestock keepers and farmers, who mainly have moved down from the north of Burkina, are having difficulty in living together.

According to the information received on the spot, it all started with a dispute in a field at village V3 between Boureima Diendé, a cattle keeper, and Issiaka Congo, a farmer, who in the end was beaten to death with a machete. It was not long before the people of his community cried out for revenge.

When we arrived on the scene on Saturday the 4th, there was not just mere fighting but an outright man-hunt. On the path leading up to the centre of village V1 a group of about 20 men, mostly young and armed with bludgeons, axes, spears and machetes,  were discussing their next move and then went off into the bush. “We are going to take revenge for Issiaka. We do not want the Fulani here” was the word we heard around. Along the same path we came upon a herd of 150 – 200 oxen and steer. “We are going to slaughter them all” said one of the men, urging the animals forward. At the marketplace in Manga-Est the event is the talk of the town.

Here some of the young men show us to a square, where animals were killed during the night. We counted 16 sheep with their throats slit. A few steps from there was a grain store for animal fodder. Here nearly all 71 steer had been slaughtered, throats slit or the entire animals  butchered up. There we met Alou Bahadio, of the Fulani tribe and owner of the killed animals. “I have lived here in Manga-Est for eleven years. I have two wives and five children. I do not know right now if they are alive. Because of what has happened, people have advised me to leave. I had to flee Friday night without my family and go down to the police station in Manga” Alou tells us,  between fits of crying.

The commander of the Manga police brigade, his deputy and ten of their men are patrolling the area. They have confiscated tenths and tenths of machetes, axes, bludgeons, spears and some traditional rifles. On our way, two young people showed us the body of a Fulani man, probably killed during the night, and told us that two more bodies were lying at another place. The full count is 7 - 10 deaths, according to the inhabitants of Manga-Est. Fulani cottages and motorcycles have been burnt down. 

In view of these circumstance, which are only getting worse, police reinforcements from Manga capital and from Pô have been requested and granted. But security guards and police officers despatched to the scene since yesterday have enormous difficulties in soothing the tension between the two communities. Their lack of ground knowledge in the area and accessibility at the onset of the rainy season make their peacemaking mission even more difficult.

The most recent information that has transpired is truly alarming. A spirit of collective revenge seems to prevail  in the area, with deaths and injuries in both communities as a result. Also very worrying are reports of purchases of large quantities of  ammunition for rifles in Manga, despatched to the troubled area. Many Fulani have fled and found shelter in Niago in the county of Bulgou.

Steven Balaya

Reporting for

LE PAYS daily paper