No fewer than 18 people have been killed in two attacks in Burkina Faso, sources briefed on the incidents informed newsmen on Sunday, as violence rages in the Sahel nation.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the country faces a jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015, with thousands of civilians, troops, and police killed, and more than two million people forced to flee their homes.
‘On Saturday afternoon, armed men attacked Bani,’ a town about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Dori in the Sahel region, one resident said. ‘We deplore 12 dead according to the first toll,’ another witness said.
A security source confirmed the attack, but gave no death toll.
Also on Saturday, six soldiers were killed in the country’s east when an improvised explosive device detonated, according to two security sources.
‘Members of the military detachment from Diapaga were on a patrol mission” when their vehicle “hit a mine on the Diapaga-Partiaga road,’ one of the sources said.
Attacks blamed on suspected jihadists are on the rise in Burkina Faso.
A landlocked country in the heart of West Africa’s Sahel, Burkina Faso is one of the world’s most volatile and impoverished countries.
Around 40 percent of the country lies outside the government’s control.
Africa Today News, New York reports that anger which is brewing within the military at the mounting toll sparked two coups in 2022, the most recent of which was in September, when 34-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power.
He is standing by a pledge made by the preceding junta to stage elections for a civilian government by 2024.
In another report, the remains of President Thomas Sankara and his 12 companions assassinated on 15 October 1987 will be reburied later this month, at the Thomas Sankara Memorial in the capital, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s transition government has confirmed.
This decision is the result of consultations among the Armed Forces, the families of the victims, the customary and religious authorities, and the International Committee of the Thomas Sankara Memorial, according to a statement issued on Friday.