At least 19 gendarmes and a civilian were killed Sunday in an alleged jihadist attack on a body contingent in Inata, north of Burkina Faso, the African army and government said.
Yesterday Sunday “around 05:30, a detachment of the gendarmerie in Inata (…) was targeted by terrorists,” the general staff said in a press release.
“The provisional death toll is 20 dead, including one civilian,” Security Minister Maxime Kone told public radio.
According to the minister, the gendarmes “resisted, fought bravely”, while there are several people who escaped, of which 22 were “located”. “Investigations are still ongoing,” he said, adding that there may be other people fleeing or attacking in the area.
A source close to the security forces told Agence France-Presse that the attack, which took place in the Sahel province of Sum, was carried out by “a large number of gunmen”, who were moving with “trucks and motorcycles”. He stressed that the battle was long.
Two other sources close to the security forces told the Reuters news agency yesterday that the dead gendarmes are at least 30 and that the report may become even heavier.
In any case, this is one of the deadliest attacks on the security and defense forces of Burkina Faso in the last six years, after the country was confronted with jihadist activity mainly in its northern part.
Another attack took place yesterday morning in Celbo, another community in the same province of Sum, said Communications Minister and government spokesman Useni Tambura.
Helicopters
“Fortunately, this attack was repulsed by soldiers with the help of Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland” (Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie, VDP, paramilitaries, assistants to the armed forces), and “there were no casualties,” the minister added.
A local official who spoke to Agence France-Presse spoke of helicopter overflights in the area “from the morning”, while stressing that the previous day two women “were killed when an improvised explosive device exploded” in Sum.
Last Friday, seven police officers were killed and five others injured in Alkoma, in the neighboring province of Seno, in northeastern Burkina Faso, according to the police directorate.
Burkina Faso, a poor country in West Africa, has been facing increasingly frequent and deadly attacks and ambushes by jihadist organizations since 2015, especially in its northern and eastern parts of the so-called “tri-border” zone, as well as in neighboring countries. Mali and Niger.
The actions of jihadist groups swearing allegiance to either Islamic State (IS) or al-Qaeda, combined with inter-ethnic and inter-ethnic violence, have claimed the lives of at least 2,000 people and forced more than 1.4 million people to flee. others to leave their homes, according to official figures.
Last Tuesday, the opposition in Burkina Faso called for “urgent action” in the face of a “deteriorating security situation” as jihadist attacks flared up; otherwise threatened to take to the streets to demand “immediate resignation of the head of state “, of the president Rock Marc Christian Cabore.
President Cabore had put the fight against “terrorism” at the heart of his 2020 election campaign, when he was re-elected for a second consecutive five-year term.
