[3] Around midday on the 12th, a group of forty women and children were foraging in Liki commune, near Arbinda, when around thirty armed men on motorcycles in military clothing and turbans abducted them.

[5] Immediately after the attack, the mayor of Dori, a nearby town, stated it was too early to tell whether JNIM or ISGS had captured the foragers.

[4] State-run radio and television announced the retrieval of the captives by the Burkinabe military on January 20, eight days after the initial capture.

[1] In the statement, twenty-seven women and thirty-nine children were freed after being discovered at a bus security checkpoint 200 kilometers away from Liki.

[9] The commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, stated the Arbinda kidnappings were the first of its kind to target women during the insurgency.