With tensions rising between Niger and Burkina Faso as they accuse each other’s security forces of crossing the border to rob and harass villagers, local officials in the area met recently to renew a call for a buffer zone, writes IRINNews.
“The situation is very difficult as the exact location of the border has not been agreed on,” the governor of the Sahel Region of Burkina Faso, Bila Dipama, told IRIN a week after the meeting in Burkina Faso’s eastern town of Fada.
The buffer zone should run between the Tillaberi Region in Niger and the Eastern and Sahel regions of Burkina Faso and should be controlled jointly by the two countries’ security forces. The officials also agreed to call on the International Court of Justice in the Hague to arbitrate the border dispute.
The dispute has simmered quietly for years with government officials having held talks on border issues since 2000. But only in recent weeks had local officials started making accusations against each other
Tensions at the meeting were eventually diffused, officials said.
Previous meetings over border issues had been between government ministers and other senior officials; this one featured mayors and prefects in the border area as well as local officials from the two countries departments of customs and forestry and wildlife services.
Kilde: www.irinnews.org
