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A military patrol “on the move” was the victim of a “complex” attack on Friday in northern Burkina Faso. According to the latest report published Monday night by the Burkinabe army, at least 51 soldiers lost their lives.
At least 51 soldiers died on Friday, February 17, in an ambush by suspected jihadists in northern Burkina Faso, where attacks by armed groups have intensified since the beginning of the year.
This ambush in the Sahel region, bordering Mali and Niger, whose provisional balance was announced on Monday, February 20 by the Army, could be the deadliest ever committed against security forces since November 2021 in Inata (north ), when 57 gendarmes died then after asking for help without success.
On Monday night, “43 new bodies were found, bringing the provisional balance to 51 fallen soldiers,” the Burkinabe army said in a statement. On Monday morning there was a balance of eight dead soldiers.
The army specified that “the operations continue with an intensification of air actions that have neutralized a hundred terrorists and destroyed their equipment.” This number is added to the close to sixty terrorists neutralized since the beginning of the response.”
“The Army General Staff “invites all the National Armed Forces to maintain the mobilization that has allowed us to achieve important victories in recent weeks,” the statement said. The General Staff also calls “on the people to the sacred union around Defense and Security Forces in these difficult times. Together we will defeat terrorism.”
“complex” attack
A military patrol “on the move” was the victim of a “complex” attack on Friday between Deou and Oursi (Oudalan province), in the Sahel region, the Army said on Saturday without giving an assessment. He added that “heavy fighting” had pitted members of the attacked military unit “against an armed terrorist group.”
Deadly attacks attributed to jihadists have multiplied in recent weeks in Burkina. With the attack on Friday, almost 200 people – civilians and soldiers – have been killed in the last two, according to a count by the AFP news agency.
Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been trapped since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that began in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and has spread beyond its borders. The violence has left more than 10,000 civilians and soldiers dead in the past seven years, according to NGOs, and some two million displaced.
*With AFP; adapted from its original in French
