Burkina Faso: Militants kill 132 people in Solhan village
UN condemns ‘heinous attack’ and calls for renewed effort against violent extremism in region
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Your support makes all the difference.At least 132 people, including seven children, have been killed by militants in a village in the northeast of Burkina Faso.
Another 40 residents were wounded as gunmen swept through Solhan in Yagha province on Friday night and burned down several homes and the local market.
The government described the attackers as terrorists as it declared a 72-hour period of national mourning. President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said the raid was "barbaric".
While no group has so far claimed responsibility, the area is plagued by jihadists linked to al Qaeda and Isis in west Africa's Sahel region.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres was "outraged" by the killings, according to a statement released on Saturday night.
"He strongly condemns the heinous attack and underscores the urgent need for the international community to redouble support to member states in the fight against violent extremism and its unacceptable human toll," said his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric.
The latest attack is believed to be the deadliest recorded in Burkina Faso over the last five years.
In March suspected jihadists killed 137 people in coordinated raids on villages in southwestern Niger and, the following month, more than 50 people were killed in Burkina Faso, including two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist.
It brings the number of civilians killed by armed Islamists in the Sahel region to more than 500 since January, according to Human Rights Watch's west Africa director, Corinne Dufka.
"The dynamic is the jihadists come in, they overpower the civil defence post and engage in collective punishment against the rest of the village – it's a pattern we've seen everywhere this year," she added.
More than 1 million people have been displaced because of the violence in Burkina Faso over the past two years and jihadist attacks have increased despite the presence of more than 5,000 French troops heading a counter-terrorism force in the Sahel region.
“It is clear that militant groups have shifted up gears to aggravate the situation in Burkina Faso, and moved their efforts to areas outside the immediate reach of the French-led counterterrorism coalition fighting them in the tristate border region,” said Heni Nsaibia, senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
Additional reporting by agencies
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