Armed jihadist groups in Burkina Faso have stepped up their attacks on civilians in recent months, "massacring villagers, displaced people, and Christian worshippers", Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
Since February 2024, HRW said that jihadists had carried out seven attacks, which killed at least 128 civilians and "violated international humanitarian law".
"We are witnessing a incredibly concerning surge in Islamist violence in Burkina Faso. The Islamist armed groups' massacres of villagers, worshippers, and displaced people are not only war crimes, but a cruel affront to human decency," said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at HRW.
In a report full of eyewitness accounts, the rights group documented gruesome atrocities including door-to-door executions, throat-slitting, the dismemberment of bodies and the rape of women.
One attack on church worshippers in February in Essakane left 12 dead.
"I saw a huge pool of blood and traces of blood all over the church, as well as bullet marks on the benches," said one survivor who lost his 49-year-old brother, a teacher, at the hands of the assailants.
"At the cemetery, I saw 12 bodies, including my brother's body, with bullet wounds in the chest and in the back, and his mouth covered with blood."
- Tens of thousands killed -
Quoted in the report, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) has counted more than 26,000 people killed -- including soldiers, militiamen and civilians -- in Burkina Faso since the start of the conflict in 2016.
In the first eight months of this year, ACLED recorded more than 6,000 deaths, including around 1,000 civilians killed by Islamist armed groups.
HRW said that the figures did not include the 100 to 400 civilians killed in an attack on August 24 in Barsalogho, in the centre of the country.
"We are caught between a rock and a hard place," said a resident of Niamana, in the far west of the country.
"On the one hand the authorities are pushing us to return to villages where security is not guaranteed, and on the other, the jihadists attack us when we return to our fields and homes", said the resident, in an account echoed by others.
When questioned by HRW about the allegations of forced returns, the country's justice minister, Edasso Rodrigue Bayala, said that the return of displaced persons is voluntary and "preceded by actions to secure localities and reopen basic social services".
The Al-Qaeda-linked Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen operates in 11 out of 13 regions of Burkina Faso, according to ACLED.
The group also regularly carries out attacks in neighbouring Niger and Mali -- where it claimed an attack on Tuesday in the Malian capital Bamako against the military airport and a police training camp.
The HRW report illustrates the difficulties Captain Ibrahim Traore's military junta faces in trying to contain this escalation in jihadist violence in Burkina Faso.
When Traore took power in a September 2022 coup, the army leader promised to regain control of the country in "six months", promising to make the fight against "terrorism" his "priority".
Local sources said on Tuesday that numerous residents of the key northern town of Djibo had fled their homes since September 14 after jihadists ordered them to leave their districts or face execution.
Some approached a military camp in the town to beg for protection, one local resident told AFP.
Djibo is home to tens of thousands of people who have fled their villages to escape jihadists over recent years.