At least 50 die in alleged Burkina Faso jihadi attacks

Source:AFP Published: 2020/6/1 17:33:40

A handout picture taken on Saturday and released on Sunday by the SIRPA, the French army press service, shows French soldiers of the Barkhan force carrying the coffin of a soldier who died when two French military helicopters collided in Mali on November 25, in the French Army base in Gao. The crash occurred late on November 25, during an operation in the Liptako region, near the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger. It was the heaviest single loss for the French military in nearly four decades. Photo: AFP

Ten people were killed when an aid convoy was ambushed in Burkina Faso, the government said Sunday, bringing the death toll to at least 50 from a string of attacks blamed on jihadists.

The ambush occurred on Saturday near the northern town of Barsalogho, it said in a statement, adding that an attack on a livestock market in the east of the country earlier in the day had claimed 25 lives, according to a provisional toll.

The humanitarian convoy was returning from the northern town of Foube after delivering food there, the statement said. At least five civilians and five gendarmes were killed and around 20 people were injured.

Saturday's attacks came a day after a convoy of mainly shopkeepers escorted by a local self-defense unit came under fire in the north of Burkina Faso, killing 15 people. That attack, in Loroum province, was also blamed on jihadists.

The east and north of the former French colony are the hardest hit by attacks from jihadists, who have killed over 900 people and caused some 860,000 people to flee their homes in the past five years.

A local governor, Colonel Saidou Sanou, said in a statement that the bloodshed underlined the need for the army and locals to work together to "defeat the terrorist hydra."

Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries, has battled a jihadist insurgency since 2015. 

AFP

Posted in: AFRICA,EYE ON WORLD

blog comments powered by Disqus