Customs officials destroy five tonnes of illegal drugs

Burkina Faso customs destroyed nearly five tonnes of illegal drugs on Monday which had been seized from traffickers over the past two years. They were mainly marijuana and amphetamines.

Officials said 2.2 tonnes of marijuana and 1.6 tonnes of amphetamines and other tablets with a total street value of nearly US $900,000 were burned.

Most of the drugs came from Ghana and Nigeria and had been seized from traffickers entering this poor landlocked country overland, they added.

"This is to show that we customs officials do not just enforce tax and duty payments, we do work also for the protection of the population," Francoise Toure, the director of investigations at the customs service told IRIN.

Last week, the head of the National Committee Against Drugs, Christophe Compaore, warned about an increase in drug consumption among Burkinabe youth. He also said that more and more marijuana was being grown inside Burkina Faso, particularly in frontier districts.

Campaore noted that traffickers were using new methods to smuggle drugs into this country of 12 million people.

"Now we are cautious about people dressed in religious gowns crossing some of our border points, just as we are also very careful with handicapped people wearing a prosthesis," Compaore said.

The government last week carried out a training session for police and customs officials to help them detect the latest tricks being used by traffickers.

Toure said some the government was aware that some hard drugs were moving through Burkina Faso in transit. Two years ago, the authorities seized a consignment of heroin at Ouagadougou airport from traffickers who were trying to smuggle it into Europe.

Officials noted that cocaine and heroin use had recently been detected among Burkina Faso's own wealthy elite.