Côte d'Ivoire: two attacks target defense forces in the north

Ivorian soldiers in Bouaké, January 13, 2017 (illustration photo).

Sia KAMBOO / AFP

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2 min

The provisional toll of two attacks last night in northern Côte d'Ivoire shows at least six dead.

Five people were killed in fighting between Defense and Security Forces and attackers qualified as " 

terrorists 

" by the general staff in Kafolo.

A gendarme was killed in a separate skirmish several kilometers east of this village.

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With our correspondent in Abidjan

,

Pierre Pinto

The attack occurred between midnight and one in the morning on the night of Sunday to Monday.

About sixty heavily armed attackers from Burkina Faso attacked army positions in Kafolo.

The fighting lasted for an hour.

According to a provisional official report, two soldiers were killed and four others were wounded.

Three attackers died.

Weapons and equipment were seized.

Reinforcements from the Defense and Security Forces arrived at dawn and a search operation was initiated in the area.

According to the Ivorian general staff, another attack was reported in Kolobougou, north-west of the department of Téhini, also near the Burkinabé border.

A gendarmerie post was targeted by an unidentified group.

A gendarme was killed.

No formal link between the two attacks yet

If the authorities confirm the jihadist nature of the attack on Kafolo, they do not formally make the link for the moment with that of Kolobougou.

But it could be the same assailants who would have attacked a gendarmerie post in their withdrawal.

On the night of June 10 to 11,

a jihadist attack in Kafolo

had already left 14 dead in the ranks of the Defense and Security Forces.

It had not been claimed but attributed to a group affiliated with the Malian Katiba Macina.

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