Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an armed organisation associated with al-Qaeda, has taken credit for an alleged attack in central Burkina Faso that left at least 140 people injured and up to 200 dead.
The attack happened on Saturday in the Barsalogho region, roughly 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Kaya, a strategically important town that is home to the last remaining force defending Ouagadougou, the capital, according to analysts.As teams of workers dug trenches to guard security outposts, fighters opened fire. Following the attack, a number of soldiers went missing, and the attackers stole a military ambulance and weapons.
“An attack in central Burkina Faso claimed 200 lives.”
Al Jazeera’s Nicholas Haque, reporting from Dakar, Senegal, claimed that JNIM had uploaded graphic footage of the attack’s aftermath.
“We witness individuals—men, women, and children—lying within the trenches that they dug by hand. In essence, they have become mass graves, he continued, mentioning that medical personnel from Kaya have been summoned by the local hospital to attend to the injured in the attack.
According to Haque, the Burkina Faso army alerted the populace to dig trenches on Friday knowing that an attack was imminent.”That demonstrates the desperation of Burkina Faso’s forces, who have allowed armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda to seize control of half of their territory,” he continued.
Burkina Faso broke off relations with Western nations like France, which had been assisting the nation’s security forces in combating armed groups.According to Haque, the government has been requesting Russian mercenary fighter assistance lately, both to help stop the attacks and to provide strategic support.
“It appears that those attacks are getting closer to the capital despite that help,” Haque stated. He pointed out that the nation’s military leaders, who took control of the country in a coup in 2022, had also had to put an end to multiple coup attempts because of dissatisfaction with how it had struggled to combat armed groups.
(Aljazeera)
