Islamic extremist groups are attacking Christian and Muslim farmers and destroying their land, their families’ main food source, as a mechanism to join their ranks in Mali, West Africa.
The pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) lamented that hunger would be the “new weapon of Jihadism to subdue the population” in Mali after local sources reported that in recent months the situation of insecurity in the country is on the rise because of Islamic extremist groups.
The informants, who decided to remain anonymous “for security reasons,” told ACN that this problem “affects the peasants above all,” since the Jihadists prevent them from harvesting their crops, the main food source of their families.
For example, they reported that they prevent Christian and Muslim peasants from transporting the rice they put in their cargo vehicles, and they punish those who do not obey by burning their farmland and even run the “risk of being killed.”