Massacres are now almost daily. Thirty-three soldiers were killed Thursday in an attack by suspected jihadists in eastern Burkina Faso, the Burkinabe army said in a statement. “The military detachment of Ougarou”, in the Eastern region, “faced a large complex attack on the morning of Thursday”, indicates the press release of the army. “Thirty-three of our soldiers unfortunately fell with arms in hand, while twelve others were injured,” he adds.
“During the fighting, which was particularly intense, the soldiers of the detachment showed remarkable determination in the face of an enemy who had come in very large numbers”, according to the army, which affirms that they “thus succeeded in neutralizing least forty terrorists before the arrival of reinforcements”.
“Heavily armed” attackers
The deployment of these reinforcements “made it possible to evacuate the wounded who are currently being cared for by the health services”, according to the army. Security sources said the attackers were “heavily armed” and that “some soldiers are missing”.
The press release specifies that “the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces salutes the memory of the soldiers who have made the supreme sacrifice in the performance of their duty”. “He encourages all the units involved in the operations to maintain efforts in order to strengthen the dynamics of reconquest in progress”, adds the text.
Two military coups in 2022
Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that appeared in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and which has spread beyond their borders.
The violence has claimed more than 10,000 lives over the past seven years – civilians and soldiers – according to NGOs, and some two million displaced.
The transitional president, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power in a putsch in September 2022, signed a year-long “general mobilization” decree last week.