Riding in with assault rifles on motorbikes and in 4X4 trucks, they sent government troops and rangers fleeing from the area in eastern Burkina Faso bordering the Sahel, a belt of scrubland south of the Sahara Desert. A poor country of mainly subsistence farmers, Burkina Faso has in the past few years become the focus of a campaign by local insurgents and regional militant groups. The attacks extend toward hundreds of small-scale mines in Burkina Faso alone. About 2,200 possible informal gold mines were identified in a government survey of satellite imagery last year. The militants have carved a path through some of Burkina Faso’s richest gold fields, the analysis found.
