Forty-four civilians were killed during the attack on two villages in northeastern Burkina Faso, near the Nigerien border, by "armed terrorist groups", on the night of Thursday, April 6 to Friday, April 7, said Saturday the governor of the Sahel region in a statement.

"The provisional assessment of this despicable and barbaric attack" which targeted the villages of Kourakou and Tondobi, "reports 44 civilians killed and wounded," said Lieutenant-Colonel Rodolphe Sorgho, the governor of the Sahel region. Thirty-one people were killed in Kourakou and 13 in Tondobi, he said.

The governor assured that "actions to stabilize the locality are underway after (a) offensive by the defense and security forces (FDS) which made it possible to incapacitate the armed terrorist groups that perpetrated the said attack".

This double attack occurred in localities located five kilometers from Seytenga, a commune bordering Niger, mourned in June 2022 by an attack claimed by the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) that had killed 86 people.

The governor of the Sahel region also invited the local populations on Saturday "to be one with the SDF and enlist as volunteers for the defense of the homeland (VDP, civilian auxiliaries) in order to participate in the defense of their respective localities".

More than 10,000 dead since 2015

Burkina Faso, particularly its northern part, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) organization, which has left more than 10,000 dead - civilians and soldiers - according to NGOs, and some two million internally displaced.

The country has been ruled since September by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power in a coup d'état, the second in eight months. In February, Captain Traoré had expressed in February his "intact determination" to fight the jihadists, despite the multiplication of attacks.

With AFP

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