(Ouagadougou) “A dozen” civilians were killed in an attack carried out by suspected jihadists on Friday evening against a locality in western Burkina Faso bordering Mali, a local official and residents told AFP on Saturday.
“The village of Kié, located two kilometers from the entrance to Djibasso, was the target of an attack by unidentified armed individuals on Friday evening around 8 p.m.” (local and GMT), declared to AFP a local official on condition of anonymity.
“The report shows a dozen people killed by the attackers who also caused material damage,” he continued.
“The attackers who came in large numbers surrounded the village. They summoned the inhabitants to empty the village before setting fire to certain dwellings”, for his part explained a resident of Djibasso, evoking a balance sheet of “14 dead and wounded”.
This attack adds to the toll of a bloody week in Burkina Faso, with more than fifty civilians killed by suspected jihadists in various parts of the country.
According to another resident who has taken refuge in Nouna, the main town in the area which hosts some 6,000 displaced people fleeing the violence, another nearby village was targeted on Thursday by jihadists.
“Bouakuy, located 4 kilometers from Djibasso, was also summoned by terrorists on Thursday morning to leave the premises definitively on pain of reprisals in the days to come,” he said.
In recent weeks, violent attacks have multiplied in the region of Boucle du Mouhoun (west), bordering Mali.
On Sunday, at least 13 people were killed by unidentified armed individuals in Haourema-Karekuy, a town 10 km north of Nouna.
On May 13, 33 civilians were killed in an attack by suspected jihadists in the village of Youlou still in this region of the Boucle du Mouhoun.
Thursday, several hundred people demonstrated in Nouna, to demand more security.
According to residents of the area, traffic has become very dangerous on the various axes around Nouna and Djibasso, due to the activity of jihadist groups.
Burkina, 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 over the past seven years has killed more than 10,000 civilians and soldiers, according to NGOs, and more than two million internally displaced persons.