Nine civilian army auxiliaries and three soldiers were killed on Thursday August 4 in simultaneous attacks by suspected jihadists in northern Burkina Faso, AFP learned on Friday August 5 from security and local sources.
armed men”attacked the military detachment of the rural commune of Bourzanga», in the Centre-Nord region, then «positions of the VDP (Volunteers for the defense of the homeland, auxiliaries) in the localities of Alga and Boulounga located in the same commune», Killing a total of nine VDPs and three soldiers, according to a security source. These attacks and the toll were confirmed by a VDP official. “Three soldiers fell in Bourzanga and nine volunteers in Alga“Said the security source, also referring to”some wounded among the defense and security forces and the Volunteers“. A local VDP official told him that six of them were “fallen at Alga and three at Boulounga“, adding that”several assailants were also killed“. “During their responses to these coordinated attacks, the armed forces and the Volunteers neutralized around thirty terrorists.“Said a second security source confirming the various attacks.
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Burkina Faso, where soldiers took power in January promising to make the fight against jihadists their priority, is confronted like several neighboring countries with the violence of armed jihadist movements affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, which since 2015 have caused thousands of deaths and some two million displaced persons. More than 40% of Burkina’s territory is outside state control, according to official figures. At the end of January, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba overthrew President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, accused of having been unable to stem jihadist violence. But the security situation has not improved and attacks attributed to jihadist groups have even multiplied in recent months, targeting civilians and soldiers alike.
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In early July, 34 civilians were killed in two separate attacks in the north and northwest. In mid-June, 86 civilians were massacred by jihadists in Seytenga (north), one of the worst killings in the country’s history. This attack prompted the authorities to create two “areas of military interest“, where “all human presence is prohibitedand where the army is carrying out operations against the jihadists, in the north and east, the regions most targeted by attacks. The army admitted on Wednesday the death of civilians during airstrikes against “terrorist groupsin eastern Burkina, without specifying the number, of the inhabitants of the region interviewed by AFP speaking of a “thirtiesof killed.