Ouagadougou, 21 Feb. At least 51 soldiers died last Friday in northern Burkina Faso in a jihadist attack on an army unit, which responded with an air offensive, according to information from the Burkinabe Armed Forces, which initially estimated the number of eight dead. soldiers in uniform killed.
“As of the close of business on Monday, February 20, 2023, 43 new bodies were recovered, putting the provisional figure at 51 fallen soldiers,” the military said in a statement released late Monday.
“Operations are continuing with an intensification of air actions which have enabled the neutralization of around a hundred terrorists and the destruction of their equipment. This number is in addition to the sixty terrorists neutralized since the start of the response”, adds the official memo.
The army issued this statement after having published a few hours earlier in which it indicated that 60 jihadists had been killed last Friday during an air offensive, after an ambush by gunmen against a military unit in which eight soldiers are dead.
“Seven armed vehicles and dozens of motorbikes were also destroyed by National Armed Forces aerial vehicles,” the document said.
The incident occurred in the wilaya of Oudalan, in the Sahel region (north).
After learning of the number of dead soldiers, the transitional president of Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, conveyed the “compassion of the whole nation” to the army and to the “families of the victims”.
“The fight is hard, the fight strewn with pitfalls, but our patriotic passion and our determination remain intact until the final victory,” Traoré added in a press release.
Burkina Faso has suffered frequent jihadist attacks since April 2015, carried out by groups linked to both Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, particularly in the north of the country.
The country suffered two coups in 2022: one on January 24, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, and another on September 30 by Captain Ibrahim Traoré.
The seizure of power by the military took place on both occasions following discontent between the population and the army over jihadist attacks, which forced the displacement of nearly 1.9 million people, according to government data. ECE
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