Burkina Faso: Three days of national mourning after deadly attack

Burkina Faso is in mourning again. An as yet unidentified armed group has struck in the north of the country, killing more than a hundred people. In response to this tragedy, the head of state of Burkina Faso has declared three days of national mourning.

The President of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, has decreed three days of national mourning, from midnight on 5 June to 11:59pm on 7 June. This decision comes in the wake of the terrible attack that struck the gold mining locality of Solhan, in the province of Yagha, in the north of Burkina Faso, on the night of Friday 4 to Saturday 5 June. It was around 2 a.m. when the attackers went on the rampage.

« The attack, launched by several armed men, first targeted the post of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, civilian auxiliaries of the armed forces in the fight against terrorism. It was then that it was directed against the houses, » a local source reported by RFI. The death toll, still provisional, is 132, with several injured; houses and the village market were burned.

According to Hamadi Boubacar, mayor of Sebba, a town about ten kilometres from Solhan, the as yet unidentified assailants « ransacked everything in their path. They killed people, burnt cars, ransacked shops, ready to destroy everything they saw in their path. Burkina Faso’s leader, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, reassured his compatriots that measures are being taken to find and neutralise the perpetrators of this « despicable act ».

Last night’s attack is believed to be the most violent and deadly in Burkina Faso since jihadist groups began operating in the country in 2015. At least 1,400 people have died so far this year, and more than a million have been displaced.