OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO — Suspected jihadists
massacred at least 160 civilians, including around 20 children, in a village in
Burkina Faso’s volatile north, the deadliest attack since violence erupted in
the West African country in 2015, local officials said Sunday.
اضافة اعلان
The slaughter in the early hours of Saturday followed the
slaying of 14 people late Friday in the village of Tadaryat in the same region
where jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda and Daesh have been targeting civilians and
soldiers.
In Solhan, in the region near the borders of Mali and Niger,
local sources said they have recovered a total of 160 bodies from three mass
graves.
“It’s the local people themselves who have started exhuming
the bodies and burying them after transporting them,” one local source said.
An earlier toll from local sources had put the dead at 138,
while a government toll stood at 132 dead and around 40 wounded as of late
Saturday.
In Solhan, a local official said the “situation is still
volatile... despite the announcement of military operations,” adding that
residents were fleeing to the nearby towns of Sebba and Dori.
“Many people lost everything after their homes and
belongings were torched,” he said.
President Roch Marc Christian Kabore on Saturday condemned
the massacre in Solhan as “barbaric” and “despicable”.
“We must remain united and solid against these obscurantist
forces,” Kabore said.
Declaring three days of national mourning through Monday,
the government stated that “terrorists”, a term for jihadists, killed civilians
of all ages and set fire to homes and the main market.
A security source lamented “the heavy human toll, the worst
recorded to date”, while warning it could still increase.
UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said he was “outraged”
over the massacre.
Guterres “strongly condemns the heinous attack and
underscores the urgent need for the international community to redouble support
to Member States in the fight against violent extremism and its unacceptable
human toll,” Stephane Dujarric said in a statement, offering Burkinabe
authorities the UN’s “full support”.
The assailants struck around 2:00 am (0200 GMT) against a
position of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Motherland (VDP), an anti-jihadist
civilian defense force which backs the national army, before attacking homes
and carrying out “executions”, a local source said.
Opposition leader Eddie Komboigo demanded that “the massacre
of our people, we never tire of repeating, must stop unconditionally. Every
measure must be taken to protect the Burkinabe” people.
The VDP was set up in December 2019 to help Burkina’s poorly
equipped military fight jihadists but it has suffered more than 200 fatalities,
according to an AFP tally.
The volunteers are given two weeks’ military training before
working alongside the security forces, typically carrying out surveillance,
information-gathering or escort duties.
‘Neutralize these terrorists’
The government said Saturday that the defense and security
forces were working “to neutralize these terrorists and restore calm to
populated areas.”
A security forces official said that men were deployed to
secure populated areas and to remove and bury bodies.
Solhan, a small community around 15 kilometers from
Sebba,
the main city in Yagha province, has suffered numerous attacks in recent years.
On May 14, Defense Minister Cheriff Sy and military top
brass visited Sebba to assure people that life had returned to normal,
following a number of military operations.
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