While the Burkinabè authorities face the jihadist danger, an attack on a mosque has left at least 16 dead and 2 seriously injured Friday night in Salmossi, about twenty kilometers from Gorom-Gorom in northern Burkina Faso, has We learned Saturday, October 12 from sources safe and local.
"Armed individuals attacked the Great Mosque of Salmossi between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm (local and GMT), killing at least 16 people," a security source said. "13 people died during the attack and 3 others succumbed a few hours after severe injuries," she added. "Two other wounded are in critical condition".
"The victims are all Muslims who were praying in the mosque," said a resident of Gorom-Gorom, joined from Ouagadougou. "Since this morning (Saturday), people have started to flee the locality," he said, evoking a "panic despite the military reinforcement that was deployed" after the attack.
Burkina Faso, a poor country in West Africa, has been caught in a spiral of violence for four and a half years, attributed to jihadist armed groups, some affiliated with Al Qaeda and some to the Islamic State organization. .
Since early 2015, jihadist attacks, more and more frequent and deadly, especially in the North and East, have killed more than 600 people, according to an AFP count.
Mosques and imams have already been the target in the country of attacks attributed to jihadists by the authorities.
Nearly 500,000 people have fled several localities because of armed attacks by jihadist groups, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which reports an "ongoing humanitarian crisis" affecting some 1, 5 million people in the country.
With AFP