Teenagers toyed with guns at a museum exhibit. Young men posed in front of posters of the country’s military leader. Over dinner in restaurants, families watched television monitors showing footage of drone strikes.

The event was billed as a national cultural festival in the West African nation of Burkina Faso. But it often resembled a mobilization campaign in the all-out war against the Islamist terrorists who have gradually occupied the country in recent years.

“The motherland or death,” Alaila Ilboudo, a spoken word artist, shouted onstage to the cheers of crowds at the festival, held in May in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country’s second largest city.

Burkina Faso has long been known for its international film festival and arts scene. But as extremists affiliated with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda have turned a swath of West Africa into the world’s epicenter of terrorism, Burkina Faso has been the hardest hit.

More than 8,000 people were killed last year in a conflict between extremists and the military, according to analysts. That is twice as many as in 2022. In a country of 23 million, nearly three million people have fled their homes, according to humanitarian groups, and 1.4 million children are expected to face hunger this summer, with aid corridors choked off by the extremists.