2023-04-27 21:20:44
Thirty-three soldiers were killed on Thursday April 27 in an attack by terrorist groups in eastern Burkina Fasoannounced the Burkinabè army in a press release.
“The military detachment of Ougarou”, in the Eastern region, “faced a large complex attack on the morning of Thursday,” the army statement said. “Thirty-three of our soldiers unfortunately fell with weapons in hand, while twelve others were injured,” he adds.
“During the fighting, which was particularly intense, the soldiers of the detachment showed remarkable determination in the face of an enemy who had come in large numbers”, according to the army, which affirms that they “thus succeeded in neutralizing least forty terrorists before the arrival of reinforcements”. The deployment of these reinforcements “made it possible to evacuate the wounded who are currently being cared for by the health services”, according to the army.
“Some soldiers are missing”
Security sources said the attackers were “heavily armed” and that “some soldiers are missing”.
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The press release specifies that “the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces salutes the memory of the soldiers who have made the supreme sacrifice in the performance of their duty”. “He encourages all the units engaged in the operations to maintain efforts in order to strengthen the dynamics of reconquest in progress”, adds the text.
This attack comes a week following the massacre on April 20 of at least sixty civilians in a northern village, Karma, by men wearing army uniforms. This attack, officially revealed on Sunday, killed “sixty” people according to a regional prosecutor, “more than a hundred”, according to representatives of survivors and residents of Karma.
“despicable and barbaric acts”
The government “firmly condemned Thursday” these despicable and barbaric acts “and affirmed to follow very closely the evolution of the investigation”, opened by the prosecutor of the high court of Ouahigouya (north) in order to “elucidate “the facts and “challenging everyone involved”.
Karma’s victims were laid to rest Thursday evening. “The administrative authorities have mobilized for the burial of the remains of our mothers, our fathers, our sisters and our sons”, or “a hundred people”, declared to AFP Daouda Belem, one survivors. He wanted to thank the government which “allowed Karma to bury his dead” and called for collaboration with the gendarmerie for its investigation.
On April 18, at least twenty-four people, including 20 civilian army auxiliaries, were killed in two attacks by terrorist groups in central-eastern Burkina. On April 15, six soldiers and 34 civilian auxiliaries were killed in the north during the assault launched once morest their detachment.
The Burkina Fasothe scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that emerged in the Mali and at Niger a few years earlier and which has extended beyond their borders. The violence has claimed more than 10,000 lives over the past seven years – civilians and soldiers – according to NGOs, and some two million displaced.
The interim president, captain Ibrahim Traorewho came to power in a putsch in September 2022, signed a decree of “general mobilization” for a period of one year.
With AFP
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