NOS News••Amended
At least 44 people have been killed in two attacks in northern Burkina Faso, local authorities report. It is not clear who is behind the attacks. The authorities speak of “armed terrorist groups”.
The villages of Kourakou and Tondobi in the Sahel region of the West African country were raided on the night from Thursday to Friday. Islamist groups with ties to Al Qaeda and IS are active in that area. These groups often carry out attacks in the region in question.
The governor of the region called the attacks “despicable and barbaric”. He says the government is trying to restore calm in the area and calls for calm.
Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world. Years of violence have led to great political instability. The government does not control a large part of the territory and two coups were staged last year by soldiers who promised to take tough action against the jihadists.
However, violence is on the rise in the country. And jihadists block villages, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from moving freely.
A group affiliated with IS said it was responsible for the killing of more than 70 soldiers in February. Dozens were injured and five soldiers were taken hostage. That happened after a military convoy was ambushed in the north. A few weeks earlier, jihadists killed 32 people in various attacks across the country. The dead included military and civilians.
Humanitarian crisis
Millions of people have fled the violence in recent years. Thousands have died. The unrest in the region began in 2012 in neighboring Mali, when Islamists cracked down on a separatist movement. The violence then spread to Burkina Faso and Niger.
According to the United Nations, the country is in the worst humanitarian crisis in its history. A fifth of the inhabitants, more than 4.5 million people, need humanitarian aid, says the UN.
