A project in Burkina Faso to help internally displaced people

In Burkina Faso, the advance of jihadist forces into the country and their attacks on civilians are causing massive internal displacement. Approximately 2 million people (i.e., one in ten inhabitants) have fled their homes. The seven Emmaus groups in Burkina Faso decided to take action to assist these people, as the majority find shelter in derelict buildings or on abandoned plots of land, and receive no support from public services or humanitarian NGOs.

The project consists of distributing food and hygiene kits and providing water storage drums to those in makeshift camps in the areas where the Emmaus groups work. The groups will also organise awareness-raising sessions on hygiene and how to prevent transmissible diseases, designed and run together with the mutual health organisation in Burkina Faso. These sessions will benefit almost 700 families living in camps or taken in by host families.

According to Emmanuel Siambo, the project’s local coordinator, despite the unstable political situation and the recent coup d’état, distribution activities have begun in the Emmaus groups’ local areas and will continue until the end of the year.

This project was set up thanks to the Emmaus International Executive Committee emergency fund, with co-funding from the Abbé Pierre Foundation.