OUAGADOUGOU: Militant attacks in Burkina Faso have inflamed accusations against the Fulani community, sparking warnings the troubled country may spiral into ethnic conflict — even civil war.

The impoverished Sahel state is battling a seven-year-old insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and prompted nearly two million to flee their homes.

The militants have drawn some of their recruits from the Fulani minority, causing the group as a whole to be stigmatized, say specialists.

Audio messages posted mainly on WhatsApp have urged “native” Burkinabe to attack the Fulani, especially in the southwest region bordering Ivory Coast.

The government last Thursday issued a fierce condemnation.

It likened the posts to Radio Mille Collines — a notorious radio station in Rwanda that in 1994 urged its Hutu listeners to slaughter “Tuti cockroaches.”

The calls amount to “active and direct calls for murder, mass killings, ethnic cleansing and sedition — the tone and words used send shivers down the spine,” said government spokesman Lionel Bilgo.

The country had to act “firmly and resolutely” against “speech that is hateful, subversive, dangerous and unacceptable in a country as rich and diversified as Burkina Faso,” he said.

The Fulani, also known as Peul, account for around 1.5 million out of Burkina Faso’s 20.5 million people.

They have been singled out in the past for association with massacres.

On Jan. 1, 2019, unidentified assailants attacked the village of Yirgou in northern Burkina Faso, killing six people, including the village elder.

The attack triggered instant reprisals against Fulani that led to 50 deaths, according to the official toll, while civil society groups say fatalities numbered at least 146.

Three months later, at least 116 unarmed men, accused of supporting or housing militants, were believed to have been killed by the security forces in the village of Arbinda, Human Rights Watch said.

“With few exceptions, the victims were members of the Fulani ethnicity,” it said, after sending investigators to the location.

Other massacres in 2020 in the villages Dinguila and Barga left dozens of dead, most of them also Fulani.

Last month, a man was arrested for allegedly distributing an audio message directed at two Fulani traditional and religious leaders.

“Your community is behind the insecurity which is rampant in our country,” it said.

“Out of the 60 ethnic groups (in Burkina Faso), yours is the one which is behind the massacres.”