Forty-four civilians have been killed by \u201carmed terrorist groups\u201d in two villages in north-eastern\u00a0Burkina Faso, near the Niger border, a regional governor said Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The provisional toll of \u201cthis despicable and barbaric attack\u201d which targeted the villages of Kourakou and Tondobi overnight on Thursday \u201cis 44 civilians killed and others wounded,\u201d said Rodolphe Sorgho, lieutenant-governor of the Sahel region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sorgho said that 31 people had died in Kourakou and 13 in Tondobi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An army offensive put \u201cout of action the armed terrorist groups\u201d that carried out the killings, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The governor also assured that \u201cactions to stabilise the area are under way\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The impoverished Sahel country is grappling with a seven-year-old campaign by jihadists linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A resident of Kourakou told AFP that \u201ca large number of terrorists burst into the village\u201d late on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll night long, we heard gunfire. It was on Friday morning that we saw that there were several dozen dead,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Local people said the village had been targeted in retaliation for the lynching of two jihadists a few days earlier who had tried to steal cattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was one of the deadliest attacks since Captain Ibrahim Traor\u00e9 came to power in a coup last September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In February 51 soldiers were killed in an attack on Deou, in the far north of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latest twin attacks happened close to the village of Seytenga, where 86 civilians were killed last June in one of the bloodiest attacks of a long-running insurgency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burkina Faso\u2019s new military chief this week vowed to step up a \u201cdynamic offensive\u201d against jihadists following a string of insurgent attacks since the start of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe dynamic offensive under way in the past few weeks will be stepped up to force armed groups to lay down their weapons,\u201d said Colonel C\u00e9lestin Simpor\u00e9 after a handover ceremony following his appointment last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the jihadists launched their campaign from neighbouring Mali in 2015, more than 10,000 civilians, troops and police have been killed, according to one NGO estimate, and at least 2 million people have been displaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Official figures say jihadists effectively control about 40% of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frustrations within the military led to two military coups last year. Traor\u00e9, who came to power in September, has vowed to fight back and recover conquered territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the jihadists have carried out a succession of raids and ambushes since the start of the year, inflicting heavy tolls on civilians and military-escorted convoys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burkina\u2019s beleaguered army has recently acquired foreign-made drones, and regularly issues video footage of strikes against purported terrorists and troops described as reconquering and securing lost territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since Traor\u00e9 seized power last year, the activities of all political parties and civil society organisations in the country have been suspended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forty-four civilians have been killed by \u201carmed terrorist groups\u201d in two villages in north-eastern\u00a0Burkina Faso, near the Niger border, a regional governor said Saturday. The provisional toll of \u201cthis despicable and barbaric attack\u201d which targeted the villages of Kourakou and Tondobi overnight on Thursday \u201cis 44 civilians killed and others wounded,\u201d said Rodolphe Sorgho, lieutenant-governor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":25862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[9465,11746,8217,5304,11394,9831,9204,960,10387,6848,6731,6083,5241,5846,7445,9127,9947,13157,8356,9515,10634,5317,5572,1390,7964,11973,421,1649,12778,9832,5618,7609,9178,8033,5724,3954,594],"class_list":["post-30860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-al-qaida","tag-appointment","tag-army","tag-attack","tag-attacks","tag-barbaric","tag-border","tag-burkina-faso","tag-campaign","tag-civilians","tag-coup","tag-dead","tag-died","tag-displaced","tag-drones","tag-february","tag-gunfire","tag-islamic","tag-jihadists","tag-killed","tag-lost","tag-mali","tag-military","tag-niger","tag-north","tag-one","tag-police","tag-sahel","tag-seized","tag-soldier","tag-soldiers","tag-terrorist","tag-troops","tag-video","tag-weapons","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}