DNT Burkina Faso – Jihadists in Burkina Faso yesterday struck again this time killing 13 soldiers and injuring dozens others near the town of Namentenga in the center northern part of the country.
The soldiers were ambushed while rushing to provide first aid to passengers of a bus that had run aground after driving over land mines.
The Burkinabe military has launched what it calls a “Mopping up” exercise in response to this latest of a long string of Jihadist attacks on soldiers.
Attacks by jihadists linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group have killed thousands and displaced an estimated 1.5 million people in Burkina Faso since 2015.
Islamist militants now move freely across entire swaths of the country and have forced inhabitants of some regions to conform to a strict version of Islamic law. Meanwhile, the army’s continuing fight against the Islamists has depleted the country’s already meagre resources.
A timeline of jihadist violence in Burkina Faso
On January 15, 2016, 30 people were killed in a double terrorist attack perpetrated by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb on the Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino restaurant in Ouagadougou. Many of the victims were Western expatriates.
On March 2, 2018, eight deaths among the security forces were reported after attacks targeting the French embassy and the Burkinabe Armed Forces.
On January 1, 2019, the Fulani ethnic group, accused of collaborating with jihadist groups, was targeted by the Mossi, another ethnic group, in an attack that left 72 people dead, according to official estimates. Another 6,000 were forced to flee.
On August 19, 2019, 24 soldiers were killed in an attack on an army base in Koutougou in the north of the country. The army was targeted again in December in a new attack by heavily armed jihadists on and around Arabinda, a city near the border with Mali.
On January 25, 2020, 39 civilians were massacred in the village market of Silgadji in the north of the country. Around 40 civilians were killed the week before in villages close to Nagraogo and Alamou.
From March to June 2021, a series of mutinies shook the Burkinabe capital: 566 soldiers were decommissioned and a new army chief was nominated by the president.
On June 5, 2021, at least 160 people were killed in a new massacre. Many victims were members of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland army auxiliary group.
On November 14, 2021, 57 people were killed in an attack on the police station in Inata, 54 of whom were police officers. They had alerted authorities about a lack of resources two weeks before the attack.
On December 10, 2021, Lassina Zerbo was nominated prime minister after the resignation of his predecessor following criticism that he had been incapable of stopping terrorist violence.
On January 11, 2022, eight soldiers accused of planning “a project to destabilise the institutions of the republic” were arrested.
DNT News with Correspondence reports from Julius Ouya
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