At least 50 civilians in Burkina Faso’s Madjoari region were killed

Ouagadougou, May 27 At least 50 civil in Burkina Faso’s Madjoari region were killed during an armed attack, according to an official statement.

Residents from the Madjoari town who were trying to reach Nadiagou, in the town of Pama, were targeted by unidentified armed men, Xinhua news agency quoted the statement from the regional government as saying.

On May 14, an attack on civil in the same area left 17 dead and seven injured.

On May 19, another attack against the military detachment of Madjoari left 11 soldiers killed and 20 others injured.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on Wednesday against residents of the rural commune of Madjoari, said Colonel Hubert Yameogo, the governor of the East Region.

The victims were traveling to a town in the nearby commune of Pama, close to the borders with Benin and Togo, Yameogo said in a statement.

Security in Burkina Faso’s has worsened since 2015 as terrorist attacks have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 1 million others in the West African nation.

Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State have overrun swathes of Burkina Faso in recent years, part of a wider insurgency across West Africa’s semi-arid Sahel region.

The violence has expanded and intensified in the past decade, killing thousands of civilians each year.

The conflict is now spilling over into coastal West African countries like Benin and Togo. Eight soldiers were killed and 13 wounded in northern Togo this month in what was likely the first deadly raid in Togo by Islamist militants. read more

Wednesday’s attack in Burkina Faso followed two others this month in Madjoari. One killed 17 civilians and another killed 11 soldiers.

Army officers angry about worsening militant attacks overthrew Burkina Faso’s president in January and vowed to improve security, but levels of violence have remained high.