Soldiers from Burkina Faso patrol on the road of Gorgadji in the Sahel area, Burkina Faso March 3, 2019. Photo by Reuters/Luc Gnago
Around 60 civilians were killed on Friday in northern Burkina Faso by people wearing the uniforms of the Burkinabe armed forces, local prosecutor Lamine Kabore said on Sunday, citing information from police in the town of Ouahigouya.
He said an investigation had been launched after the attack on the village of Karma in Yatenga province in the borderlands near Mali, an area overrun by Islamist groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State that have carried out repeated attacks for years.
The statement gave no further details on the attack.
Since 2022, attacks by armed groups on civilians have surged while state security forces and volunteer defense troops have conducted a number of abusive counter-terrorism operations, Human Rights Watch said in March.
Unidentified assailants killed 40 people and wounded 33 others in an attack on the army and volunteer forces in the same region of northern Burkina Faso near Ouahigouya on April 15, according to the government.
Unrest in the region began in Mali in 2012, when Islamists hijacked a Tuareg separatist uprising. The violence has since spread into Burkina Faso and Niger, killing thousands and displacing over 2.5 million people.
