OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO: At least 51 soldiers were killed in an ambush by the suspected terrorists in the northern area, the army said on Monday.
It further said that 160 of the assailants died during the counter attacks.
The ambush took place on Friday in Oudalan province near the restive frontier with Mali and Burkina Faso. By the end of Monday, “43 new bodies had been found, bringing the provisional death toll to 51 soldiers”, the army said in a statement.
Those deaths were added to an earlier toll of eight soldiers given by the army on Monday morning. “Operations are continuing with an intensification of air actions that have made it possible to neutralise around 100 terrorists and destroy their equipment,” added the military. “This figure is in addition to the 60 or so terrorists neutralised since the beginning of the response,” it said further.
Burkina Faso is battling a militant insurgency that spread from neighbouring Mali in 2015. According to the estimates by the NGOs, the violence has led to more than 10,000 deaths and displaced some two million people.
Anger within the military at failures to stem the bloodshed led to two coups in 2022 alone. Attacks have mounted since the start of 2023, claiming more than 100 lives in the last two weeks, according to an AFP count.
Military patrol was the target of ambush
In Friday’s incident, a military patrol was the victim of a “complex” attack between Oursi and Deou in the Sahel region, bordering Niger and Mali.
Burkina Faso is one of the world’s poorest nations and currently, around 40 percent of the West African nation lies outside government control. Last month its former colonial ruler France confirmed it would withdraw hundreds of troops stationed in Burkina Faso, after the junta ruling the Sahel country demanded the force’s pull out within four weeks. The request came days after Burkina Faso’s Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyelem de Tembela declared Russia to be a “reasonable” choice of a new partner in the anti-militant fight. — AFP/APP
