Scores of civilians killed in
Burkina Faso terrorist attack
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| A soldier from Burkina Faso stands guard in a village in the Sahel area of the country |
Scores of civilians were killed in Burkina Faso this week in
what the government has called a terrorist attack on a market in a north
central province. The Pope and the Catholic bishops of the West African nation
have appealed repeatedly for dialogue and peace.
By Linda Bordoni
Thirty-six civilians were murdered on Monday in Burkina
Faso’s Sanmatenga province when armed militants reportedly forced their
way into the market of the village of Alamou.
A government statement said that first they attacked the people,
and then burnt the market structure to the ground.
The bloodshed is part of a surge in violence in the West
African country that has killed hundreds, forced nearly a million from their
homes and made much of the north ungovernable over the past two years.
Appeals by Pope and bishops
Pope Francis and the Catholic Bishops of Burkina Faso have
called for the promotion of interreligious dialogue in an attempt to protect
the people and find solutions to the violence.
The government in Ouagadougou released a statement saying
"These repeated attacks on innocent civilians call for real cooperation
between defence and security forces."
President Roch Marc Kabore called for two days of national
mourning in response to the attack.
Links to al Quaeda and IS
Although it was not immediately clear who was responsible
for the massacre, Islamist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have
carried out increasingly brazen attacks against civilian and military targets
in Burkina Faso in recent months, including an attack on a mining convoy in
November that killed nearly 40 people.
The country was once a pocket of relative calm in the Sahel
region, but the recent local insurgency has been amplified by a spillover of
jihadist violence and criminality from Mali on Burkina Faso’s northern border.
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