41 KILLED IN BURKINA FASO AMBUSH INCLUDING MILITIA LEADER

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Sun 26 December 2021:

Armed groups attacked the troubled north of Burkina Faso, killing dozens of people.

The authorities confirmed that 41 people were killed in the attack on Thursday.

The administration stated the dead included members of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Motherland (VDP), a government-backed civilian self-defense organization set up to support the army, in a statement released late Saturday.

The attack targeted a caravan of traders accompanied by VDP near Ouahigouya, a town close the Mali border, according to local media.

Ladji Yoro, a leader of the VDP in Burkina Faso, was among the victims, according to the administration, which added that the corpses were still being identified.

Armed groups have driven religious and ethnic tensions between farming and herding communities in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to boost recruitment among marginalised communities.

The attack on Saturday was the bloodiest since a gendarmerie post was attacked in mid-November, killing 57 people, including 53 gendarmes.

Burkina Faso’s under-equipped army has failed to keep the unrest at bay.

Last year, the government requested the support of volunteer militiamen to assist the army, but the rebels who target them and the villages they help have retaliated.

At least 2,000 people have been killed and 1.4 million have been displaced as a result of the violence.

The escalating violence in the wider Sahel region, according to UN agencies, has resulted in one of the world’s most serious humanitarian crises.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES | FILE PHOTO

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