Burkina Faso junta leader says he will keep up anti-terror fight ‘until final victory’

21 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The leader of the Burkina Faso military junta, Ibrahim Traoré, has said that he keeps “intact” the determination to continue the fight against terrorism “until the final victory”, after the death of more than 50 soldiers in an attack perpetrated on Friday in the North of the country.

“The fight is bitter, the combat is strewn with traps, but our patriotic impulse and our determination remain intact until the final victory. Homeland or death. We will win,” he said in a statement.

Thus, he has denounced that the Army “was the victim of a large-scale attack” between the towns of Oursi and Deou, in the province of Oudalan, and has lamented that “despite the vigorous resistance and the response from the combatants , there were losses in human lives.”

“In the face of this ordeal, I express, both on my behalf and on behalf of the Government, the compassion of the entire nation to the entire national forces and to the families of the victims,” ​​he concluded in his message, published by the Burkinabe Presidency through your account on the social network Facebook.

The Burkina Faso Armed Forces confirmed on Monday the death of 51 soldiers in the attack and added that 160 terrorists died in subsequent bombardments and in the operations launched in response to the ambush.

Burkina Faso, ruled by a military junta since the January 2022 coup against then-president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, has experienced increased insecurity since 2015. The junta is now headed by Traoré, who starred in a September riot that was considered a “palace coup” against the hitherto leader, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

The continuous attacks in the country, carried out by both the Al Qaeda affiliate and the Islamic State affiliate in the region, have also contributed to an increase in inter-communal violence and have caused self-defense groups to flourish, to which the Burkinabe government has added to ‘volunteers’.