Sixteen civilians, including four army auxiliaries, were killed on Tuesday in two attacks by suspected jihadists in east-central and western Burkina Faso, AFP learned from local and security sources on Thursday.
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On Tuesday, “terrorists attacked a group of civilians in Koulponsgo” in the Middle East, leaving “twelve people dead and two injured,” a resident of the area told AFP, a source confirming the attack and the death toll.
On the same day, an “attack by terrorist groups in Sirasso in the west claimed four lives,” all members of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP, Civilian Auxiliary Forces of the Army), the same security source added.
She also claimed that a dozen “terrorists” were killed in the army’s response operations after the two attacks.
Since 2015, Burkina, like neighboring Mali and Niger, has been caught in a spiral of violence caused by jihadist groups affiliated with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
According to the NGO Acled, which lists the victims of conflicts around the world, they have claimed more than 17,000 civilian and military lives so far in the last eight years, including more than 6,000 since the beginning of 2023.
According to the National Council for Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation (Conasur), which reports to Burkinabe’s Ministry of Social Affairs, this violence has also led to the displacement of more than two million people within the country.
On Wednesday, as a result of a September 30, 2022 coup – the second in eight months – the Burkinabe government announced that 191,937 internally displaced persons in several regions of Burkini had returned to their respective places of residence as of August 31. by praising the recapture of places formerly occupied by jihadist groups.
The continued consolidation of the “pacified zones”, the return of the administration and the systematic provision of care to the places where the displaced people have returned are underway to increase the number of these returnees, the government said.
Despite these measures, attacks attributed to jihadist groups occur regularly across almost the entire Burkinabe region.