Suspected extremists kill at least 50 in Burkina Faso
Seytenga, Burkina Faso (AA/AFP): At least 50 civilians died in an attack by suspected extremists in northern Burkina Faso, government spokesman Lionel Bilgo said Monday, in one of the bloodiest clashes since a military coup in January.
The village of Seytenga was attacked overnight Saturday, Bilgo said, adding that the toll “may rise.” Seytenga was the site of bloody fighting last week.
Eleven gendarmes were killed on Thursday, prompting a military operation that the army said led to the deaths of around 40 extremists.
“The (weekend) bloodshed was caused by reprisals to the army’s actions,” said Bilgo.
Humanitarian organizations in the region said around 3,000 people were being housed in neighboring towns after fleeing from the village.
The landlocked Sahel state is in the grip of a seven-year-old jihadist insurgency that has claimed more than 2,000 lives and forced some 1.9 million people to leave their homes.
Attacks have been concentrated in the country’s north and east, led by assailants suspected to have links with Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group.
The latest raid is one of the bloodiest since a military putsch in January, when colonels angered at failures to roll back the insurgency ousted the elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore.
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