Army: 24 Soldiers Killed Amid Surging Violence in Burkina Faso

By Staff, Agencies

Twenty-four soldiers were killed as violence surges in Burkina Faso – 13 in a suspected Takfiri ambush and 11 after a roadside bomb exploded, the army said.

The soldiers were killed Sunday in the sixth and seventh attacks of their kind in the landlocked West African nation in under two weeks.

An armed forces communique late Tuesday said that 11 soldiers were killed in a "complex attack" around Napade in the eastern region on Sunday.

To the south of Natiaboani, close to the border with Togo and Ghana, "a security forces vehicle... hit an improvised explosive device [IED]," a security source told AFP.

The source on Monday gave a provisional toll of five dead.

The army also reported 13 killed Sunday during a security operation in the east near Natiaboani.

The army said during the "intense" operation 35 "terrorists" were killed.

The rural community of Natiaboani lies 37 miles south of Fada N'Gourma, the largest town in the Eastern Region that since 2018 has been regularly targeted by armed groups.

Violence flared again in Burkina Faso after a period of relative calm when a military junta took power in January.

Disgruntled officers toppled elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore after protests over his handling of the bloody insurgency.

More than 60 civilians, policemen or soldiers were killed over the last 10 days.

Burkina Faso has been struggling with Takfiri attacks since 2015, when militants linked to Al-Qaeda and the Wahhabi Daesh [Arabic acronym for "ISIS" / "ISIL"] group began mounting cross-border raids from Mali.