A “terrorist” attack on a Catholic church during Sunday mass in northern Burkina Faso killed at least 15 bystanders and injured two more, according to a top church official.
“We bring to your attention a terrorist attack which the Catholic community of Essakane village was the victim of today, February 25, while they were gathered for Sunday prayer,” the vicar of the Dori diocese, Jean-Pierre Sawadogo, said in a statement to AFP.
He stated that the provisional death toll was 15 and two wounded.
Sawadogo, in a call for peace and security in Burkina Faso, condemned “those who continue to wreak death and desolation in our country”.
The incident occurred at Essakane hamlet, which is located in what is known as the “three borders” zone in the country’s northeast, near the shared borders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
This is just the latest in a string of atrocities attributed on jihadist groups operating in the region, some of which have targeted Christian churches and others have resulted in the abduction of clergy.
Burkina Faso is a member of the large Sahel region, which has been fighting escalating violent extremism since Libya’s civil war in 2011, followed by an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012.
Beginning in 2015, the Islamic insurgency expanded into Burkina Faso and Niger.
When Captain Ibrahim Traore took control in 2022, it was the country’s second coup in less than a year, both sparked by dissatisfaction with the government’s failures to combat extremist violence.
Burkina Faso has lost around 20,000 individuals as a result of the conflict, and over two million people have been displaced.
AFP