The governor of the Sahel region said on Saturday that 44 civilians were killed by “armed terrorist groups” in the attack on two villages in northeastern Burkina Faso near the Niger border on Thursday night.
“The preliminary record of this despicable and barbaric attack” aimed at the villages of Kourakou and Tondobi “indicated 44 civilians killed and wounded,” explains Lieutenant Colonel Rodolphe Sorgho.
31 were killed in Kourakou and 13 in Tondobi, he said.
Attack claimed by ISIS
The governor assured that “after (an) offensive led by the Defense and Security Forces (FDS), which made it possible to eliminate the armed terrorist groups that carried out the said attack, stabilization measures are underway in the town”. .
This dual attack took place at locations five kilometers from Seytenga, a border town with Niger hit by an attack by the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara Desert (EIGS) in June 2022 that killed 86 people.
Lieutenant Colonel Sorgho also called on the local population on Saturday to “join with the FDS and volunteer for the defense of the homeland (VDP, civil auxiliary troops) to participate in the defense of their respective towns”.
Two coups in eight months
Burkina Faso, particularly its northern part, has been caught in a spiral of violence since 2015 attributed to jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) organization, which NGOs say have killed more than 10,000 civilians and soldiers have killed and some two million internally displaced.
The country has been ruled by Captain Ibrahim Traoré since September, who came to power in a coup d’état, the second in eight months.
In February, despite the multiplication of attacks, Captain Traoré had expressed his “intact determination” to fight the jihadists.