Deadly attacks carried out on the night of Monday 27 April to Tuesday 28 April against villages in the commune of Seytenga, in northern Burkina Faso, left
"18 dead"
, announced the governor of the Sahel region on Wednesday, citing a new balance sheet.
“The provisional human toll is 18 dead and one seriously injured.
The attack led to a massive displacement of the populations of the localities of the zone towards the capital of the commune ”
, underlines a press release from the governor of the Sahel region, Colonel-Major Salfo Kaboré.
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Tuesday evening, in a previous report, the Burkinabè Minister of Communication and government spokesperson, Ousséni Tamboura, reported
"incursions by armed individuals in several localities of the Sahel - Sofokel, Yatakou, Tao and Seytenga - in the Séno province ”
, having caused
“ around ten deaths ”
.
“Terrorists have carried out acts of intimidation, looting and assassinations on civilian populations. The balance sheet shows more than ten deaths, ”
the minister said.
A local elected official had mentioned for his part 15 dead and five missing.
"Armed individuals carried out a murderous raid on Monday in villages and hamlets in the town of Seytenga, killing around fifteen people,"
this local elected official told AFP who requested anonymity, joined Dori, the large neighboring town, close to Niger.
"Five other people were kidnapped by the attackers, who also took away machines (scooters), food and livestock after having vandalized businesses,"
said the local elected official.
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Seytenga is a rural commune located 40 kilometers north-east of Dori, capital of the Sahel region, and 10 km from the Niger border. Burkina Faso has been targeted by jihadist attacks since 2015, like its Sahel neighbors Mali and Niger. First concentrated in the north of the country, bordering Mali, the atrocities attributed to jihadist groups, including the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in the greater Sahara. (EIGS), then targeted the capital and other regions, in particular the East and the North-West, killing more than 1,300 people since 2015 and displacing a million people fleeing areas of violence.
