Published on : 13/06/2022 – 18:34
At least 50 civilians died in an attack on the village of Seytenga, in northern Burkina Faso, overnight from Saturday to Sunday. Jihadists are singled out.
Gunmen killed at least fifty civilians on Saturday June 11 in Seytenga, a town in the rural province of Seno, in the north from Burkina Faso.
“So far, 50 bodies have been found by the army. Perhaps the toll is heavier. Relatives have returned to Seytenga and may have taken the bodies of their relatives,” said the door on Monday, June 13. – government spokesman Lionel Bilgo, at a press conference, adding that the search was continuing.
“Reprisals to the actions of the army”
The locality of Seytenga had already been bereaved Thursday by a jihadist attack during which eleven gendarmes were killed. The Burkinabè army had announced that it had killed around forty jihadists following this attack.
“These are reprisals for the actions of the army which have caused bloodletting”, within the jihadist groups, estimated Lionel Bilgo. “The country has been hit but the army is at work,” he said.
This is one of the deadliest jihadist attacks since Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba in a coup at the end of January, when he overthrew President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré accused of being ineffective once morest insecurity.
Like its neighbors in Niger and Mali, Burkina, in particular the north and east, has been the target of jihadist attacks since 2015 perpetrated by movements affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State which have left more than 2,000 dead and 1.9 million displaced. The new strongman of the country, Henri Sandaogo Damiba has made the security issue his “priority”.
With AFP
