(Ouagadougou) Thirty-three civilians were killed Thursday in an attack by suspected jihadists in western Burkina Faso, plagued by regular violence that emerged in 2015.
“On the evening of Thursday, May 11, around 5 p.m. local time, the village of Youlou in the department of Tcheriba, province of Mouhoun, suffered a cowardly and barbaric terrorist attack,” the governor of the region of Boucle du Mouhoun, Babo Pierre Bassinga, in a statement.
“The armed men targeted the peaceful citizens busy with their market gardening activities on the banks of the river”, added Mr. Bassinga, specifying that the “provisional assessment” shows “state of 33 people killed”.
Local sources confirmed the presence of “heavily armed” attackers “on board motorcycles”, who “shot” the market gardeners “without distinction”, specifying that the victims were buried on Friday.
Residents of Cheriba also claim that three people were shot and wounded.
They report burning homes and attics, before the withdrawal of the perpetrators of the attack.
According to the governor, “security actions are underway”.
He invited the populations to “redouble their vigilance and continue collaboration with the fighting forces for a total victory against terrorism and a definitive return to peace and security in the region”.
Series of attacks
This attack comes after the kidnapping of a prefect by armed men, found dead Monday in a forest in the west of the country.
At the end of April, 33 soldiers were killed in an attack by suspected jihadists in the east and twelve were injured.
On April 18, at least 24 people, including 20 civilian army auxiliaries, were killed in two attacks by suspected jihadists in the center-east.
On April 15, six soldiers and 34 civilian auxiliaries were killed during the assault launched against their detachment in the north of the country.
The state of emergency, in effect since March in eight of the country’s thirteen regions, was extended for six months on Friday by the Transitional Legislative Assembly.
Established since 2018 in certain localities before extending, the state of emergency and its extension aim in particular to “give more opportunities and means to the Defense and Security Forces (FDS) [pour] continue their actions to secure the country”, according to the Minister of Justice Bibata Nebié Ouedraogo.
In mid-April, the transitional authorities in Burkina Faso also decreed “general mobilization”, in order to “give the state all the necessary means” to deal with jihadist attacks.
Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that appeared in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and which has spread beyond their borders.
The violence has caused more than 10,000 civilian and military deaths over the past seven years – according to NGOs, and more than two million displaced people.