Burkina Faso mourns again. A total of six soldiers and thirty-four civilian army helpers were killed in an attack by suspected jihadists in the north of the country on Saturday (April 15), Ouahigouya governorate said in a statement on Sunday.
A “Military and Volunteer Detachment for the Defense of the Fatherland [VDP, supplétifs civils de l’armée] was the target of an attack by unidentified gunmen on Saturday,” said the governorate’s press release published on Sunday around 4 p.m. near Aorema, about fifteen kilometers from Ouahigouya.
“The provisional record of this attack” reads “forty” dead, “including six soldiers and thirty-four VDP”, in addition there are “thirty-three wounded in a stable condition”, “currently cared for in the hospital center of the state university”. of Ouahigouya”, the capital of the North Region, specifies the press release. This assessment was confirmed by a security source.
This security source confirms that a “reaction” launched after this attack “made it possible to neutralize several dozen terrorists.” Another security source confirmed that the “attackers” were “almost all neutralized.” According to a third security source, the department affected by the attack “ensured the security of Ouahigouya Airfield.”
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“Right of Appeal” to the Defense
On Thursday, to deal with jihadist attacks aimed at the country, Burkina Faso’s transitional authorities issued a “general mobilization” and “alert,” giving them “the right to request people, goods and services, the right to subject supply resources to control and distribution.” ‘ and ‘the right to call for defense service, individually or collectively’.
Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught in a spiral of jihadist violence since 2015 that emerged a few years earlier in Mali and Niger and is spreading across their borders.
According to NGOs, the violence left more than 10,000 dead – civilians and soldiers – and about 2 million displaced.