This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
BURKINA FASO began three days’ national mourning yesterday following a weekend terrorist attack that killed 79 people.
Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who seized power in a military coup in January, did so on a promise to restore security after years of violence.
Armed men entered the village of Seytenga on Saturday — market day — and immediately opened fire, according to survivors, concentrating on killing men. They torched the village before leaving.
The suspected jihadist attack means nearly 5,000 people have been killed in fighting between Islamist militants and the authorities over the last two years, underlining the failure of France’s eight-year military mission to the Sahel — Operation Barkhane — to suppress jihadist groups.
Instead, the insurgencies have spread, with cross-border raids from Mali bringing the conflict to Burkina Faso in 2015. French President Emmanuel Macron announced last year that the mission would soon end and began withdrawing troops from Mali this spring after its junta demanded they leave.
