OUAGADOUGOU, DEC 26
Jihadists in Burkina Faso killed 35 civilians, almost all of them women, when they simultaneously attacked a town in the north and its military base in one of the deadliest assaults in nearly five years of jihadist violence in the West African country.
Seven soldiers and 80 jihadists also died in the double attack on Tuesday in Arbinda in Soum province which lasted “several hours” and was of a “rare intensity”, the army said.
Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, has seen regular jihadist attacks which have left hundreds dead since the start of 2015 when militant violence began to spread across the Sahel region. “A large group of terrorists simultaneously attacked the military base and the civilian population in Arbinda,” the army chief of staff said in a statement.
President Roch Marc Christian Kabore praised the “bravery and commitment” of the defence and security forces. Communications minister and government spokesman Remis Dandjinou later said 31 of the civilian victims were women, adding around 20 soldiers and six civilians were wounded. The president has declared 48 hours of national mourning.
The morning raid was carried out by dozens of jihadists on motorbikes and lasted several hours before armed forces backed by the air force drove the militants back, the army said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but jihadist violence in Burkina Faso has been blamed on militants linked to both Al Qaeda and Islamic State groups.
Militant violence has spread across the vast Sahel region, especially in Burkina Faso and Niger, having started when armed Islamists revolted in northern Mali in 2012. The Sahel region of Africa lies to the south of the Sahara Desert and stretches across the breadth of the African continent.
There are 4,500 French troops deployed in the region as well as a13,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in Mali to fight insurgents.
In Burkina Faso, more than 700 people have been killed and around 560,000 internally displaced, according to the UN. Attacks have intensified this year as the under-equipped, poorly trained Burkina Faso army struggles to contain the Islamist militancy. Courtesy: AFP
