The conflict is a subconflict of the jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso that began in 2015, although ethnically-motivated killings and attacks did not occur on a mass scale until the Yirgou massacre in 2019.
[1] The Mossi people inhabit the center of Burkina Faso, including the capital of Ouagadougou, and comprise a majority of the country's population.
[1] In the rural north, nomadic Fulani pastoralists comprise a large share of the population, extending into the porous Nigerien and Malian borders.
[1] They expanded following the 2014 Burkina Faso uprising due to a lack of security, and eventually became major political players in their respective areas.
[4] The Koglweogos are generally pro-government and loosely-connected, and in the late 2010s occasionally engaged in clashes with Fulani groups and dozo fighters in the west of the country.
One of his early proteges, Ibrahim Malam Dicko, was a radical Burkinabe Fulani preacher who brought a Katiba Macina cell to northern Burkina Faso in 2015 to form Ansarul Islam.
[7] Ansarul Islam expanded into a jihadist insurgency and in 2017, facilitated the rise of Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin, which Katiba Macina is a part of.
[8][6] While there had been small attacks between Fulani and Mossi communities, aided heavily by JNIM and Koglweogos on either side, the conflict between Fulani and Mossi did not start in earnest until December 31, 2018, when jihadists speaking Fulfulde entered the village of Yirgou in Barsalogho Department, killing twelve people including the town's mayor and his son.
[13] An example of these ethnically-motivated massacres sanctioned and committed by Burkinabe forces took place around the city of Djibo in northern Burkina Faso in 2020.
[16][18] These types of massacres have occurred notably in Karma in April 2023, Nondin and Soro and Bibgou and Soualimou in February 2024, and the eastern part of the country in May 2024.
[19][15] In northern Burkina Faso, the primary jihadist group that Fulani join is Ansarul Islam or Katiba Macina, both Fulani-dominated factions of Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin.