Eight Burkinabè civilians were killed and nine wounded Thursday in northern Burkina Faso, near the Niger border, in an attack attributed to jihadist groups that regularly operate in the area, the government announced Thursday.
Image d’illustration.
AFP
“Unidentified armed individuals ambushed civilian transport vehicles between Markoye and Tokabangou, in the Sahel region. The attack (…) left 8 dead and 9 wounded according to a provisional assessment, ”Communication Minister Ousséni Tamboura said in a statement Thursday evening. “A search operation is underway to find the perpetrators of these barbaric acts”, added the Minister.
The attack was reported in the afternoon to AFP by a security source and a local elected official. “Armed individuals intercepted this Thursday morning a public transport bus that linked Markoye to Dorbel in neighboring Niger,” a security source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The armed individuals, “certainly members of the terrorist groups which are rife in the region, fled before the deployment of reinforcements,” said this source.
It is “a mixed transport vehicle (people and goods) that was targeted by the terrorists. They shot at the vehicle and killed seven people. Another person was shot dead by the attackers during their flight, ”for his part explained a local elected official contacted by AFP.
More than 1,200 dead since 2015
The victims are “traders from Markoye who went every week to the Dorbel market” in Niger, said a resident of Markoye, adding that the attack took place around 8 am (local and GMT). “They also stripped a few passengers before heading for the Niger border”, continued this resident, of whom “a close relative is among the victims”.
Like its neighbors Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso has been confronted, since 2015, with jihadist and inter-community violence which has left more than 1,200 dead and a million displaced. In May 2020, around fifteen traders were killed in similar circumstances, when their convoy was attacked on a road in the north of the country. Nine other traders had already been killed in another attack four months earlier.
Fearing these recurring attacks in the North, the transporters organize convoys accompanied by Volunteers for the defense of the Fatherland, auxiliaries of the defense forces, which they pay. The army also sometimes escorts these convoys.
Under-equipped and poorly trained, the security forces of Burkina Faso are unable to stem the spiral of jihadist violence, despite the help of foreign forces, in particular from France, present in the Sahel with 5,100 men from the operation anti-jihadist Barkhane.
On Monday, Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno announced the dispatch of 1,200 soldiers to the so-called “three borders” area, between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, to fight against the jihadists, on the sidelines of a summit of five Sahel countries with France in N’Djamena.
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