{"id":37001,"date":"2021-06-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southafricatribune.com\/?guid=6dab7b880f96fe786ea4f65241aa8a39"},"modified":"2021-06-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T00:00:00","slug":"armed-attackers-kill-132-civilians-in-burkina-faso-village-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatribune.com\/armed-attackers-kill-132-civilians-in-burkina-faso-village-raid\/","title":{"rendered":"Armed Attackers Kill 132 Civilians in Burkina Faso Village Raid"},"content":{"rendered":"
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO – The death toll from the worst militant attack in Burkina Faso in recent years has risen to 132, the government said Saturday, after armed assailants laid siege overnight to a village in the Islamist extremist-plagued northeast.<\/p>\n
The attackers struck during the night Friday, killing residents of the village of Solhan in Yagha province, bordering Niger. They also burned homes and the market, the government said in a statement.<\/p>\n
It declared a 72-hour period of national mourning, describing the attackers as terrorists, although no group has claimed responsibility. Another 40 residents were wounded, government spokesperson Ousseni Tamboura later told reporters.<\/p>\n
Attacks by Islamist extremists linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State in West Africa’s Sahel region have risen sharply since the start of the year, particularly in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, with civilians bearing the brunt.<\/p>\n
The violence in Burkina Faso has displaced more than 1.14 million people in just more than two years, while the poor, arid country is hosting 20,000 refugees from neighboring Mali.<\/p>\n
The latest attack pushed the number killed by armed Islamists in the Sahel region to more than 500 since January, according to Human Rights Watch’s West Africa director, Corinne Dufka.<\/p>\n
“The dynamic is the jihadists come in, they overpower the civil defense post and engage in collective punishment against the rest of the village \u2014 it’s a pattern we’ve seen everywhere this year,” Dufka said.<\/p>\n
In March, attackers killed 137 people in coordinated raids on villages in southwestern Niger.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Source: Voice of America<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO – The death toll from the worst militant attack in Burkina Faso in recent years has risen to 132, the government said Saturday, after armed assailants laid siege overnight to a village in the Islamist extremist-plagued northea…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n