According to a new toll that was announced on Monday by the governor of the Sahel region, at least 25 people were killed in an attack that is suspected to have been carried out by jihadists in the northern region of Burkina Faso on Saturday. This includes at least 22 civilians and three police officers. In a press release, the governor and lieutenant-colonel Rodolphe Sorgho revealed that “the municipality of Bani in the province of Séno (north) was the subject of a savage attack performed by armed terrorist groups.”
“The provisional toll of this terrible and cruel attack indicates 25 individuals murdered, including 22 civilians and three officers,” he stated. “Injuries and material damage have also been reported as a result of this attack.” An earlier report that was supplied on Sunday by two local neighbors stated that at least 12 people had been killed. In the press release, Mr. Sorgho said that steps were being taken to protect “the area” and asked the local people to “work together more so that we can beat the terrorist hydra together.”
According to a statement made by a local citizen on Sunday, the armed men “targeted the police station, the town hall, and a school.” “The attackers’ gunfire hit homes and a mosque before the defense and security forces could respond,” he said. A second local said that “guys on motorcycles” had “attacked the city” with “many targets,” and he was worried that the number of people reported missing or hurt could make the death toll even higher. A security source said that during the initial response and the manhunt that followed, “many armed people were neutralized.”
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According to two different sources in the security industry, an explosion caused by a homemade bomb claimed the lives of six soldiers in the Eastern region on the same day. One of the people involved in the incident said that “members of the Diapaga military detachment were on a patrol mission” when their vehicle “hit a mine on the Diapaga-Partiaga axis.”
Since 2015, Burkina Faso has been shaken by assaults by groups with ties to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as battles between these groups and the country’s security forces. The violence resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and the displacement of approximately two million. Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who became transitional president after the second military coup in eight months on September 30, 2022, wants to “reconquer the land that these hordes of terrorists have taken.”
