On a Friday earlier this month, just as Dr. Daouda Diallo left the passport office in the capital of the West African state of Burkina Faso, Four men grabbed him on the streetpushed him into a vehicle and drove away.

Dr. Diallo, a pharmacist turned human rights activist awarded a prestigious prize for human rights workHe has not been heard from since that day, December 1st.

But four days later, a picture of Dr. Diallo, 41, wearing a helmet and holding a Kalashnikov rifle, posted a post that appeared to confirm the fears of his family and colleagues that he had been forcibly drafted into the army. According to international and local human rights groups, Dr. Diallo and a dozen other public figures were informed by security forces in November that they would soon be drafted to help the government secure the country.

Then on Christmas Eve, two men in civilian clothes rang the doorbell of Ablassé Ouedraogo, a former foreign minister and opposition leader. He was taken away and his whereabouts remain unknown. according to Faso Autrement, his political party.

Burkina Faso, a previously stable landlocked nation of 20 million people, has been torn apart over the past eight years by violence from extremist groups loosely linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

In the ensuing chaos, the country suffered two coups in just 10 months, the second last year by a military junta that vowed to use all means to contain militant groups.

According to human rights groups and lawyers, Dr. Diallo and Mr Ouedraogo are among at least 15 people who have recently either disappeared or been forcibly conscripted. The list includes journalists, civil society activists, an anesthesiologist and an imam, all of whom had criticized the junta for its failure to defeat the insurgents and for abuses against the population it was supposed to protect.

The military government led by 35-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traoré has failed to keep its promise to restore stability. Violence has increased under his rule, diplomats, aid workers and analysts said. Burkina Faso has become a flashpoint in the Sahel, a vast swath of land south of the Sahara that has been rocked by extremist insurgencies and military coups.

About half of the country’s territory is now outside government control. According to the United Nations and aid agencies, nearly five million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and more than two million others have lost their homes and belongings. Local and international aid groups have accused both extremists and pro-government forces of massacres of civilians.

“Burkina Faso is the epicenter of security challenges in West Africa,” Emanuela Del Re, the European Union’s special representative for the Sahel, said in an interview. “The situation is desperate and the population is paying the price.”

Burkina Faso, a former French colony, had was dependent on the support of French troops for a long time to fight the insurgency. But after last year’s coup, Captain Traoré vowed to cut all ties with France, seen as a neo-colonial power that had failed to contain extremists. Hundreds of French troops withdrew The government left the country earlier this year and the government has instead sought to forge an alliance with Russia, leading to speculation that the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group could begin operating in the country.

Faced with a lack of resources, the military-led government issued a broad appeal for civilians to join volunteer defense forces, promising them a stipend and two weeks of military training. An emergency “general mobilization” law was also announced, giving the president wide-ranging powers, including the confiscation of persons, the confiscation of goods and the restriction of civil liberties.

“Burkina Faso’s military junta is using its emergency law, which gives it the ability to confiscate and relocate people and goods, to silence and even punish its critics,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This practice violates fundamental human rights.”

Burkina Faso’s military government did not respond to interview requests and declined to comment on the practice of forced conscription.

The US State Department said in a statement on December 12th It is concerned about the recent actions of the military government of Burkina Faso, “such as the increasing use of targeted forced recruitment, the shrinking scope for civil society and the restrictions on political parties.”

It added: “These actions have the cumulative effect of silencing individuals who work on behalf of their country to promote democratic governance.”

While the emergency decree allows the government to conscript civilians over the age of 18, human rights groups said the targeted use of the law violated basic human rights.

Three of the people who were at the same time as Dr. Diallo received draft notices and sued the government. At the beginning of December, a court in the capital Ouagadougou sided with them and declared that the orders were illegal. Despite the verdict, all three – two human rights activists, Rasmané Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo, and Issaka Lingani, a journalist – remain in hiding out of fear for their lives.

“We expected it for Daouda,” said Binta Sidibe-Gascon, the president of Kisal Observatory, a rights group that originated in Burkina Faso but is now exiled in Paris, and refers to Dr. Diallo, the pharmacist. “We told him: It is not safe for you to stay in the country. But he said the people needed him there.”

Earlier this year, Arouna Louré, an anesthesiologist from Ouagadougou, was drafted and sent as a military doctor to one of the country’s most dangerous areas after he criticized him in a Facebook post the army’s response to a jihadist attack.

“Not only is it illegal, it is also cruel,” said Ms. Allegrozzi of Human Rights Watch. “It’s like: They criticized the army. Now you will see for yourself what it looks and feels like to be a soldier.”

Several Burkina Faso residents, including activists, journalists and analysts, declined to be interviewed, saying they feared for their lives. “Anyone who speaks out against the junta will disappear,” one of them said.

Those who disappeared had largely leveled criticism, confirmed by data, about how the government’s pushback on an all-military strategy to fight insurgents had backfired, analysts and aides said.

“Violence in Burkina Faso has reached an all-time high,” said Heni Nsaibia, a senior analyst at Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which collects data on conflicts in Africa. “The death toll from the conflict has skyrocketed.”

In places like the northern city of Djibo, whose population has grown from 60,000 to 300,000 and has been under a prolonged blockade for two years, residents rely solely on aid flown in by United Nations-operated humanitarian flights.

Many people, exhausted by the never-ending cycle of violence, have welcomed Mr Traore’s promise of security. The streets of Ouagadougou were decorated with Russian flags. Banners feature images of soldiers and patriotic messages. Roundabouts are patrolled by unofficial militias called “Irissi, irissi” or Russian in Moore, the national language of the largest ethnic group, after rumors that they are paid by Russia.

50,000 people answered the government’s call to volunteer for the military, which pays a monthly salary of about $107, above the minimum wage and highly desirable in a country where regular income is rare. Some said they were also eager to contribute to the war effort.

Ouattara Fadouba, a musician, said he joined the volunteer forces earlier this year but had not yet been sent to the front. Instead, he records songs praising the government.

“The country has been attacked by terrorists and I make myself available to the nation,” he said in a telephone interview from Ouagadougou. “If I am called to the front, I will go.”

But those who criticize the government’s purely military strategy will not be silenced. Mr. Louré, the anesthesiologist, was discharged from duty last week and returned home after spending three months in military camps and at the front. The experience only reinforced his view that relying solely on the military to fight insurgencies is the worst option.

“The more the state continues violence, the more people will become frustrated and may want to join the terrorist groups,” he said.