At least 160 killed in deadliest Burkina Faso attack since 2015

By AFP 6 June 2021, 7:09 pm

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Suspected jihadists massacred at least 160 civilians, including around 20 children, in a village in Burkina Faso’s volatile north, the deadliest attack since Islamist violence erupted in the West African country in 2015, local officials says.

The slaughter in the early hours of Saturday followed the slaying of 14 people late Friday in the village of Tadaryat in the same region where jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State have been targeting civilians and soldiers.

In Solhan, in the region near the borders of Mali and Niger, local sources says they have recovered a total of 160 bodies from three mass graves.

“It’s the local people themselves who have started exhuming the bodies and burying them after transporting them,” one local source says.