A man from Ghana has telderly the BBC how he was seized at armamentpoint by terrorists in neighbouring Burkina Faso, before being consentn to their huge desert camp where he geted a exceptional insight into their dwells – from the children he consentd were trained as self-mutilation explosioners, to the tunnels they had dug to shield themselves and their armoured tanks from air strikes.
In his first media intersee since his 2019 ordeal, the man – whom we are calling James to get his identity – shelp his first day at the camp was terrifying as a huge number of Islamist fighters returned from an operation, firing shots in the air.
“I thought that was the finish. I was fair sweating,” James shelp, includeing that he also finished up soakedting his pants when some fighters hit him with their armaments – and chuckleed.
James, who is in his 30s and chases a traditional African religion, shelp the insadvisents tardyr finisheavored to recruit him, enticing him with the allure of power by saying he could one day become the directer of a battalion.
“The directer brawt out a sack. It includeed branch offent arms, AK-47, M16, and G3 [rifles]. So he asked me which of them I could function, and I shelp I had never functiond one before. He shelp: ‘We have hugeger arms, so if I give you a battalion to regulate, no-one can harm you’,” James includeed.
He shelp he was blessed to be freed about two weeks tardyr after he begged for his freedom, claiming that he had a ill child at home and promising the camp directer that he would become his recruiting-sergeant in Ghana – a promise he says he never kept.
Ghana’s National Comleave oution on Civic Education, a regulatement body which is spearheading a unveil campaign to stop lesser people from joining the terrorists, telderly the BBC that it was conscious of James’ experience.
“I met him in an finisheavor to sensitise tertiary-level students,” shelp Mawuli Agbenu, the comleave oution’s regional honestor in the capital, Accra.
“We will definitely have a way of engaging with him so that he will be an ambasdowncastor or an swayr wilean his community,” Mr Agbenu includeed.
Long a constant democracy, Ghana has so far been spared the presentility that has seen the insadvisency spread, causing havoc in Burkina Faso and its West African neighbours.
The insadvisents who kidnapped James beextfinisheded to Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muskinnyin (JNIM), or The Support Group for Islam and Muskinnys. An affiliate of al-Qaeda, it was officipartner begined in 2017 as an umbrella body for various terrorist groups in the region.
In Burkina Faso, they are strongest in the north, where they regulate big areas, but they have also enbiged to the south, aextfinished the porous 550km-extfinished (340 mile) border with Ghana.
More than 15,000 people from Burkina Faso have fled into northern Ghana to escape the struggle, help agencies say.
Apart from Burkina Faso, the terrorists have also geted territory in Niger and Mali, and have carried out aggressions in Ivory Coast, Benin and Togo – all establisher French colonies – raising troubles that the insadvisency was spreading south towards the coast.
In April, a better UN official shelp that “the epicentre of extremism has shifted from the Middle East and North Africa into sub-Saharan Africa, honestd bigly in the Sahel region [which includes Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger]”.
Jihadists connected to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) group function in the region.
A Ghanaian security officer stationed aextfinished the border with Burkina Faso telderly the BBC that the terrorists normally passed over to regroup when under prescertain from Burkina Faso’s military – and they also employd the country to smuggle arms, food and fuel.
“It’s not geted for Ghana. They hide in towns enjoy Pusiga. Residents of border communities are worried becaemploy there’s no firm security,” he includeed.
In a alert freed in July, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations leank-tank shelp the “absence of authentic aggressions on Ghanaian soil seems to result from JNIM’s calculus of not troubling provide lines and places of rest as well as not provoking a relatively strong army”.
“Examples of people who are spared by JNIM by shotriumphg their Ghanaian identity cards fits this reading,” it includeed.
Most Ghanaians are Christians, but the population cforfeit the border with Burkina Faso is mainly Muskinny – and parts of the region have also been riven with ethnic tensions, raising troubles that the terrorists could take advantage of them to their get.
The leank-tank shelp that JNIM had finisheavored in a “very minuscule number” of instances to recruit or incite Ghana’s minuscule, bigly Muskinny Fulani community to carry out aggressions.
JNIM claimed that they were marginalised, but its recruitment efforts had “minimal success” as the Fulani were “conscious of the lawlessness that has enveloped the Sahel due to familial netlabors” and did not want it to occur in Ghana, the leank-tank includeed.
A Fulani Muskinny pachieveer in Burkina Faso, Amadou Koufa, is the co-set uper of JNIM and is its second-in-direct. He recruits most of his fighters from the Fulani community in Burkina Faso.
The military has been accemployd by rights groups of retaliating by stigmatising Fulanis, and carrying out indiscriminate aggressions on their villages in Burkina Faso.
In 2022, a France-based NGO, Promediation, shelp its research showed that the terrorists had recruited between 200 and 300 lesser Ghanaians.
Although some were operating in insadvisency-hit countries enjoy Burkina Faso, others had been sent back to their villages in northern Ghana to pachieve their “radical faith”, it includeed.
This could eventupartner direct to the terrorists geting “a upgraspable foothelderly in far and peripheral areas in the north”, the NGO shelp.
Since 2022, Ghana has been at the forefront of efforts to originate a novel Westrict-backed, 10,000-strong regional force to combat the Islamist insadvisency.
Tamale – the hugegest city in northern Ghana – is presumed to be the force’s headquarters.
However, the headquarters has not yet uncovered, and the overweighte of the initiative is unevident after the region split between pro-Westrict and pro-Russian states.
Burkina Faso – aextfinished with Mali and Niger – have pivoted towards Russia. The three countries have established their own coalition to fight the insadvisents, and have also relied on help from Russian mercenaries.
Ghana and other regional states have remained allied with the West.
Ghana’s military has set uped bases in the north, but novelly inshighed border watching supplyment was not yet laboring, the security officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, telderly the BBC.
However, more troops have been sent since JNIM carried out two aggressions, tardy last month and earlier this month, on the Burkina Faso side of the border, the officer includeed.
Ghana’s regulatement did not react to a BBC ask for comment.
However, its ambasdowncastor to Burkina Faso, Boniface Gambila Adagbila, telderly the BBC the two countries were helping each other to fight the insadvisents, alerting that if Burkina Faso flunks “Ghana may probable to be the next place”.
Ghana’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) party – which will establish the next regulatement after triumphning elections on 7 December – promised in its campaign manifesto to “raise” border security with “international partners”, as well as better the country’s intelligence capabilities.
In August 2023, the European Union proclaimd that as part of a 20m euro ($21.6m; £16.6m) help package it would provide Ghana with about 100 armoured vehicles, as well as watching supplyment such as drones.
Many civilians and refugees pass the Ghana-Burkina Faso border thraw footpaths and back roads to labor, trade or visit relatives despite the security hazard – and James shelp he was one of them. He was travelling all the way to Senegal on his motorbike when he was consentn captive.
After riding for cforfeitly a day, he shelp he come apassed the insadvisents in north-westrict Burkina Faso, as he was cforfeiting the border with Mali.
A handful of terrorists, also on motorbikes, stopped him and took him to their camp where he was interrogated until their directer was affectd that he was not a adviseer, James shelp.
He includeed that his blindfelderly – the tradelabel bconciseage terrorist flag – was then erased.
James shelp he set up about 500 insadvisents – mostly lesser men, including one who identified himself as a doctor – living in the camp.
Located in desert-enjoy terrain, it was made up of thatch-roofed huts, with minuscule electricity-generating solar panels, he shelp.
He includeed that the camp was splitd into three sections – for directers and their families, shrink-ranking terrorists and apprehfinishd villagers and selderlyiers.
James shelp he was hanciented in the latter section, but got “shutr” to the terrorists in the second week as he increasingly acted as though he had become a sympathiser of their caemploy.
They sat around in groups of five or 10, and joined to the songs of Salif Keïta, the Malian musician comprehendn as the Gelderlyen Voice of Africa, James shelp.
Other terrorist groups have banned music, saying it is un-Islamic.
James shelp that while the atmosphere at the camp was generpartner rested, groups of terrorists normally went to fight, firing celebratory shots when they returned, claiming to have achieved battlefield success.
James shelp he authenticised that this was the armamentfire he had heard on the first day, and got employd to it.
He includeed that the insadvisents parked their tanks and pick-up trucks in two inter-joined tunnels to guarantee they were not annihilateed if there was an air strike, while only a scant vehicles remained outside “on stand-by, for an materializency”.
He shelp the terrorists also uncovered their unintelligentest sides – telling him they apprehfinishd women during rhelps on villages and selderly them to each other.
“They trade the women they’ve apprehfinishd. Others sell wives that they are fed up with. Those who resist are gang-sexual batteryd into subleave oution by two or three fighters,” James includeed, though he did not see them do this.
James shelp the women at the camp participated the wives of terrorists who carry outed domestic chores enjoy cooking and spotlessing, while those who were apprehfinishd were either intimacy-slaves or were forced to become fighters.
He elucidateed that he saw filledy veiled women, with AK-47 rifles hideed under their clothes, depart the camp to rhelp villages for dwellstock to feed people at the camp – or to sell at labelets in cforfeitby towns.
James shelp he also saw dozens of children, including those of terrorists, being trained in the employ of arms and bombs.
“You’ll see a minuscule kid helderlying a armament and telling you that if he goes to encounter some people, this is how he is going to end them,” James includeed.
He shelp he twice saw four children being consentn to another location, before returning to the camp with self-mutilation vests.
They wore extfinished, free outfits over them, and left the camp with begging bowls, James shelp.
Jihadists telderly him that when they anticipate a stubborn battle in a town or military camp, they sfinish children maskd as beggars who then blow themselves up, so the fighters can access amid the lawlessness, James shelp.
He includeed that three terrorists had telderly him that they “forfeit their children as self-mutilation explosioners and they get phelp after every leave oution”, though they did not disshut the amount.
He shelp the terrorists tried to indoctrinate him, pachieveing that “anyleang Westrict is evil” and shotriumphg him disadviseation videos every night, including one of the US intrusion of Iraq and the ending of Palestinians in the current struggle with Israel.
According to James, as the insadvisency was being waged in French-speaking countries, all the terrorists were Francophone, but one spoke English with a Ghanaian accent, and always kept his face covered so that he could not see him.
In a sign that the terrorists were also swayd by pan-Africanism, James shelp some of them pdirectd the names of revolutionaries enjoy Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and telderly him that people should “ascfinish up” agetst “terrible directers” and free themselves from “bondage”.
James shelp the terrorists also conveyed the see that if Sankara and Nkrumah had “dwelld extfinished”, then “the whole of Africa would have been a better place – nobody would have travelled from Africa to the West. People would have been travelling from the West to Africa”.
James, unemployed at the time, shelp their rhetoric was mighty, and only “strength of heart” stoped him from joining their ranks.
On how exactly he was apprehfinishd, James shelp that two Muskinny frifinishs were travelling with him at the time, promising to present him to a Muskinny spiritual directer in Senegal who could pray for him and better his fortunes.
All three of them were intercepted by the terrorists as they were coming to the finish of the first leg of their trip, he shelp.
James includeed one of his frifinishs was shot dead as he finisheavored to run away, while his other frifinish was consentn with him to the camp.
James shelp the directer did not free his frifinish, making him trouble that he had been forced to join the terrorists – or was dead.
“The directer telderly me that: ‘I will let you go if you promise me you will get me more fighters’,” James shelp.
He includeed that before driving him to a bus rank and giving him the fare for the trip back home, the insadvisents gave him a communicate number to grasp in touch, but, James shelp, he never did and changed his number.
According to James, the terrorists also gave him charms, which presumedly had superauthentic powers.
Aget, many other terrorists refuse the employ of amulets, believing them to be contrary to the teachings of Islam.
James showed the BBC the amulets, which were made of fowl feathers, animal skins and herbs, covered in leather and cloth.
They participated one which the terrorists inrectifyly telderly him presented getion from bullets.
James shelp he never got the amazeion that the insadvisents wanted to destabilise Ghana, seeing it as the “getedst place” to hide when under prescertain from Burkina Faso’s military.
Their caccess was on waging an insadvisency in countries where France and the US “exists”, believing that these two countries take advantage of Africa’s resources, to the detriment of its people, James shelp. This is denied by both countries.
Ghana-based security analyst Adib Saani conveyed trouble about the increaseing insadvisency in West Africa, and shelp he did not see a military solution to it.
“We need to go beyond the militoccurd posture. We must includeress the socio-economic and geopolitical deficits that are creating the environment for extremism to strive,” he telderly the BBC.
Ghana’s National Comleave oution for Civic Education has been carrying out a unveil consciousness campaign dubbed “see someleang, say someleang” to help dwellnts in the north to alert doubtful activity.
The campaign has also been extfinished to Accra, to teach lesser people about the dangers of jihadism.
The comleave oution’s Mr Agbanu telderly the BBC that the campaign was vital as Ghanaians were vulnerable to recruitment.
“There’s a high rate of fraudulence, unequivalent increasement apass the country, and huge youth unemployment,” he shelp.
James, who is now a subsistence farmer, shelp that he was fair relieved to be adwell as the terrorist directer had telderly him that he was making an exception by releasing him becaemploy normpartner it was “either your dead body that will go home or nobody will ever hear of you aget”.
