OUAGADOUGOU: In two separate statements released on Monday, a regional governor and the army reported that armed assailants killed at least 28 people, including soldiers and civilians, in Burkina Faso on Sunday and Monday.
Ten soldiers, two volunteer fighters, and a civilian were killed, according to the army, in an attack on a combat unit in Falangoutou, in the north of the country, near the border with Niger.
According to the army, 15 attackers' bodies were discovered following the attack.
The governor of the country's Cascades region, Colonel Jean Charles dit Yenapono Some, issued a separate statement on Monday announcing that 15 civilians' bodies had been discovered following an attack on Sunday.
According to the governor, two transport vehicles carrying eight women and 16 men were stopped by armed men. He stated that the women and one man were released.
In the statement, the governor stated, "This January 30, the victims' corpses were found near Linguekoro village, showing signs of bullet impact."
Al Qaeda and Islamic State insurgents are battling insurgents in Mali, Niger, and the Sahel state in West Africa.
Nearly 2 million people have been displaced and hundreds of villagers have been executed as a result of the militants' occupation of land in the country's arid, mostly rural north. They have blocked off towns and villages, making the food shortage even worse.
Political instability and two military coups in the country in January and September 2022 were exacerbated by militant attacks and insecurity.
The militants' attacks have spread to the south, where they have also carried out raids across borders in coastal states like Benin, Togo, and Ivory Coast.
