Burkina Faso: Extremist Attack Death Toll Increases to 80
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The death toll rises to 80 in an attack carried out by extremists on a civilian convoy guarded by soldiers near Arbinda, Burkina Faso.
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Soldiers from Burkina Faso patrol in Gorgadji in the Sahel area of Burkina Faso, March 2019.
Ouagadougou announced the aftermath of an attack that has taken the lives of 80 soldiers and civilians.
Occurring in the north, the death toll initially stood at 47 on Wednesday. The government said the attack killed 6 pro-government militiamen and 15 military police. On Thursday, the death toll increased to 80, as the government added that 59 civilians were killed in the attack.
Extremists attacked a civilian convoy that was protected by military police and pro-government militiamen near Arbinda, the latest bloodshed in the Sahel area of Burkina Faso.
As a retaliation, security forces revealed that 80 extremists were killed, too.
In the past few years, violence has been escalating in the Sahel area, an arid region on the southern border, despite the presence of thousands of UN, regional, and Western troops in the region.
Since 2018, the violence, which was heavily concentrated on the borders of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, has killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions.
Moreover, armed men killed 37 civilians, including 14 children, in an attack on a village in Niger. A Thursday attack in central Mali killed 15 soldiers.
The Sahel region plunged into chaos after Al Qaeda-linked extremists linked seized northern Mali in 2012.
France intervened the following year in an attempt to deter them. But the armed Islamists reorganized and expanded their operations, leaving large areas of the Sahel ungoverned by central governments.
