PUNCH
Forty-four civilians have been killed by “armed terrorist groups” in two villages in northeastern Burkina Faso, near the Niger border, a regional governor said on Saturday.
The provisional toll of “this despicable and barbaric attack” which targeted the villages of Kourakou and Tondobi in northeast Burkina Faso overnight Thursday “is 44 civilians killed and others wounded,” said Rodolphe Sorgho, lieutenant-governor of the Sahel region.
Sorgho said that 31 people had died in Kourakou and 13 in Tondobi.
The regional official said that an army offensive put “out of action the armed terrorist groups” that carried out the killings.
The governor also assured that “actions to stabilise the area are underway”.
The impoverished Sahel country is grappling with a seven-year-old campaign by jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
A resident of Kourakou told AFP that “a large number of terrorists burst into the village” late Thursday.
“All night long, we heard gunfire. It was on Friday morning that we saw that there were several dozen dead,” he added.
Locals said the village had been targeted in retaliation for the lynching of two jihadists a few days earlier who had tried to steal cattle.
It was one of the deadliest attacks since Captain Ibrahim Traore came to power in a coup last September…
