Deaths in African terror attacks not affecting aid, company recruitment

VANCOUVER – Aid organizations and companies working in West Africa say terror attacks like last week’s deadly siege in Burkina Faso haven’t affected their ability to recruit people willing to work in the troubled region.

Several relief groups and Canadian mining companies say people interested in relocating to the fraught area of the world typically understand and accept the risks.

“Often those who commit to go are well aware of the consequences and the challenges involved,” said Idriss Lomba, a spokesman for Doctors Without Borders Canada.

“They know that, like other aid organizations, we tend to go in those dangerous places (with) hardship conditions.”

On Friday, a group of armed extremists stormed a luxury hotel and cafe in Burkina Faso’s capital city and killed 28 people, including six aid workers from Quebec.

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attack, which targeted locations popular with foreigners.

Katharine Harris of Save the Children agreed that people who choose a career in humanitarian work understand the risks, but added that 90 per cent of the organization’s aid workers are locals.

“So, our workers in areas of conflict are typically people who are already conflict-affected and are responding to needs within their own communities,” Harris said in an email.

Plan Canada also emphasizes hiring local as much as possible, said Tanjina Mirza, the social-justice group’s vice-president of international programs.

While recruitment remains unaffected, Mirza said the recent spate of terror attacks has led to government-imposed travel bans that have hindered the organization’s work.

“We have a lot of programming in Burkina Faso, Mali (and) neighbouring countries,” she said. “We cannot go but we need to go because there are enormous needs.”

Canada banned travel to Mali after terrorists took about 170 people hostage, killing 20, at an upscale hotel in Bamako last November. As of Monday, no such outright restriction has been introduced for Burkina Faso.

“Before there used to be clear hot spots, but now it’s becoming countries like Burkina Faso, which were doing fairly well” Mirza said.

“Country after country is affected. It’s difficult to say which country will be next.”

Like humanitarian organizations, companies operating in West Africa don’t appear to be experiencing any recruitment challenges in the aftermath of the attacks.

Vincent Benoit, a spokesman for Endeavor Mining Corp., said the company’s foreign workers are very familiar with the risks, with many of them coming from nearby South Africa.

“Those guys (have) worked for decades in Africa and they know, unfortunately, it could happen,” Benoit said.

It’s the company’s duty to take all measures to ensure the safety of its workers, he added.

Endeavor has gold projects across the region, including Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Burkina Faso.

For up-and-coming Burkina Faso-based mining outfit Roxgold Inc., recruitment has also been business as usual, said spokeswoman Toni Davies.

“The mining industry as such is in an economic lull or downturn so there are a lot of people who are trained in the mining industry who are without employment at the moment,” she said.

Burkina Faso is largely a Muslim country and had for years been largely spared from the violence carried out by Islamic extremist groups who were kidnapping foreigners for ransom in neighbouring Mali and Niger.

Four of the six people killed in Friday’s attacks were from the same family: Gladys Chamberland, her husband Yves Carrier, their adult son Charlelie Carrier and Yves’ adult daughter, Maude Carrier.

The other two were family friends, Suzanne Bernier and Louis Chabot.

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