Six civilians, four of them teachers, were killed in a suspected jihadist attack in southern Burkina Faso close to the border with Ghana, security officials and local sources said on Monday.
Gunmen “opened fire on a group” in the town of Bittou on Sunday, a security source said, adding that the attackers had fled to the nearby forest of Nouhao pursued by security forces.
A regional federation of education unions said four teachers at the local high school, including the head teacher, were among the six fatalities.
Burkina Faso, a poor and landlocked country in the heart of West Africa’s Sahel, is struggling with a jihadist insurgency that is now in its eighth year.
Thousands of civilians, police officers, and security volunteers have died, and some two million people have fled their homes.
- Burkina Faso: 30,000 new army auxiliaries to fight terrorism
- Burkina Faso to be excluded from U.S.-Africa trade deal – White House
Swathes of the country are no longer under government control and turbulence in the military over the crisis has triggered two coups this year.
The 10-year-old jihadist campaign in the Sahel has ignited fears of an advance towards vulnerable countries on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea — Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Ivory Coast.
Bittou, located in Burkina’s Centre-East region, is an important commercial hub straddling a key highway about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the border with Ghana and Togo.
SOURCE: thedefensepost.com