Ouagadougou – At least nine police officers were killed in a weekend attack in northern Burkina Faso, security sources said on Monday, the latest incident to bear the hallmarks of jihadist violence.
Attacks by armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State group have plagued the landlocked west African country since 2015, killing 2 000 people and displacing 1.4 million others.
“Yesterday (Sunday) evening, unidentified armed individuals carried out a deadly attack on the security forces in Foube,” a Burkina Faso security source told AFP.
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The source said a dozen survivors were found on Monday morning but added “many” people were still missing.
“The search is still underway to update the toll, which will be communicated later,” another security source said.
The incident comes a week after the deadliest attack on Burkina Faso’s defence and security forces for years, killing at least 53 people including 49 police in the north of the country.
Attacks are becoming more frequent and are mostly concentrated in the north and east of the poor Sahel state, leading to angry demonstrations across the country.
Armed groups have killed 500 members of the security forces in six years, according to official records.
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Picture: Getty Images
Source: AFP
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