On the night of Sunday to Monday, “the civilian population of the rural community of Burasso (northwest) was the target of a cowardly and barbaric attack by armed men,” said a press release from Boucle de Mouhun district governor Babo Pierre Basiga.
Thirty-four people were killed over the weekend in Burkina Faso in two separate attacks on civilians in the north and northeast of a country increasingly in mourning over a wave of violence that authorities attribute to jihadist groups.
On the night of Sunday to Monday, “the civilian population of the rural community of Burasso (northwest) was the target of a cowardly and barbaric attack by armed men,” said a press release from Boucle de Mouhun district governor Babo Pierre Basiga.
“The provisional toll of this terrorist attack is 22 dead, many injured and material damage,” according to the text.
Earlier yesterday, a source close to the security forces told AFP about “about fifteen victims, men, women and children”, while another source in the area spoke about “about twenty dead”.
“The gunmen first made a round at around 17:00 (local time; 20:00 Greek time) of the village, firing into the air. They returned at night and opened fire indiscriminately on the civilian population,” the resident explained.
According to the regional governor, the security and defense forces “entered the area and proceeded with clearing operations”.
On Saturday, a deadly attack took place in Namishigima, Yatenga province, according to another source close to the security forces.
“The toll of this attack is 12 dead, among them three Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland” (Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie, VDP, army auxiliaries), according to this source, who also spoke of waves of displaced people from Sunday.
Escalation of violence
Like its neighboring countries (Niger, Mali), Burkina Faso has been faced with an escalation of violent incidents, attributed to jihadist armed movements that pledge allegiance to either Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. Thousands of people have been killed and nearly 2 million displaced in the nation of 21 million people, one of the poorest in the world despite its large gold deposits.
More than 40% of the territory is outside state control, according to official figures. Burkina Faso has become the epicenter of the security crisis in the Sahel, with more deadly attacks than Mali and Niger in 2021, according to the non-governmental organization ACLED.
In late January, Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Santogo Dhamiba ousted President-elect Roque Marc Christian Cabore, who was accused of incompetence in dealing with jihadist violence, and promised that restoring security would be his top “priority.”
But the situation in Burkina Faso has far from improved.
In mid-June, 86 civilians were massacred by jihadists in Seitenga (north). It was one of the deadliest attacks in the country’s history.
This attack pushed the military regime to create two “military zones” where “any presence” of civilians is “prohibited” and where the armed forces are expected to carry out operations against the jihadists in the northern and eastern parts of the country, where their activity is more intense.
The transition period, before the handover of power to civilians, was set at three years by the military junta, which characterized this period as necessary to bring the security situation under control.
RES-EMP
View the news feed and get the latest news.
