Another deadly attack in Burkina Faso. While nearly 20 civilians were killed in a jihadist attack in the north of the country in early February, at least 24 people were killed and 18 injured in the attack on a church on Sunday, the governor announced on Monday from the Sahel region, Colonel Salfo Kaboré.
A previous security sources report said at least ten people were killed in the alleged jihadist attack during Sunday worship in the village of Pansi, in the province of Yagha.
On Sunday, "an armed terrorist group" broke into the village and "attacked the peaceful populations of the locality after having identified them well and separated them from non-residents," wrote Colonel Kaboré, in a communicated statement. to AFP. "The provisional report shows 24 people murdered, including the pastor of a Protestant church. We also deplore 18 wounded and abducted people."
"The wounded were evacuated to Sebba and Dori for appropriate care and the dead carried to the ground the same day by the survivors, spontaneously helped by the inhabitants of neighboring villages," added the governor. "Research is underway to locate the abductees."
Churches, Christian clerics and imams targeted by jihadist groups
On February 10, an armed group stormed the city of Sebba, the provincial capital, before kidnapping seven people from a pastor's home. Three days later, five of these people, including the pastor, were found dead, the other two, women, being unharmed, according to the regional governor.
Attacks attributed to jihadist groups against churches or Christian religious have multiplied recently in Burkina, a poor Sahelian country in West Africa.
Several imams have also been assassinated by jihadists in northern Burkina Faso since the attacks began four years ago, increasingly frequent and deadly.
Since the end of 2015, jihadist attacks in Burkina have left more than 700 dead, according to an AFP count, and more than 600,000 internally displaced persons and refugees, according to the United Nations.
Under-equipped and poorly trained, the Burkinabè security forces fail to stem the spiral of violence despite the help of foreign soldiers, in particular the French force Barkhane.
>> Read also: "Operation Barkhane confronted with hostility against France in the Sahel"
Jihadist violence - often interspersed with inter-community conflicts - in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger killed 4,000 people in these three neighboring countries in 2019, according to the UN.
With AFP
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