According to Human Rights Watch: "Human Rights Watch documented 14 alleged summary executions by state security forces, and four deaths in their custody. Several other cases witnesses believe implicate members of the security forces merit further investigation. All of the alleged abuses occurred in 2017 and early 2018 within Soum Province, including around the towns of Nassoumbou, Djibo, Bourou, Baraboulé, Inata, Sona and Tchembolo. The majority occurred between September 2017 and February 2018. Witnesses, community members and security sources said the alleged perpetrators were members of the Burkina Faso Army, the National Gendarmerie, two special units created to respond to the growing threat from armed Islamist groups (the Combined Anti-Terrorist Forces and the Special Intervention Unit of the National Gendarmerie), and to a lesser extent, the National Police. [...] In late November 2017, the bodies of two traders a witness said had been arrested at an army checkpoint as they were leaving the Nassoumbou market to return to their village, called Tem, were found the next day some four kilometers south. The witness said: "One had come to buy animal feed and the other to sell his iron wares. I’d also been at the market that day selling. The army checkpoint is a few kilometers north of the market and they were arrested around 16hr and put in a pickup. I’m sure the checkpoint is manned by the Army, we see their cars leaving the camp, going to the checkpoint and then returning. The dead… their faces were totally covered with their turbans… it looked like they’d been shot in the head...blood had soaked their clothing. Later the families came to take their bodies for burial. I heard their people (family members) complaining that the gendarmes refused to investigate the incident but had, they themselves, been interrogated as suspects."" ^[+]