The West African Sahel nation has been struggling to contain armed groups for a decade.
Around 170 people were “executed” in attacks on three villages in northern Burkina Faso a week ago, a regional prosecutor said, as violence erupts in the country.
Aly Benjamin Coulibaly said in a statement on Sunday that he had received reports of attacks on the villages of Komsilga, Nodin and Soroe in Yatenga province on February 25, with a provisional toll of “around 170 people executed.”
The attacks left other people injured and caused property damage, the prosecutor in the northern city of Ouahigouya said, without blaming any group.
He said his office ordered an investigation and asked the public for information.
Continuous violence
Survivors of the attacks told the AFP news agency that the victims included dozens of women and young children.
Local security sources cited by AFP said the attacks were separate from deadly incidents that occurred on the same day at a mosque in the rural community of Natiaboani in eastern Burkina Faso and at a church in the northern town of Essakane. .
Authorities have not yet released an official death toll from those attacks, but a senior church official said at the time that at least 15 civilians were killed in the Natiaboani attack.
About half of Burkina Faso is outside government control, as armed groups have ravaged the country for years.
The violence has killed nearly 20,000 people and displaced more than two million people in one of the world's poorest countries in a region plagued by instability.
Anger over the state's inability to end insecurity played a major role in two military coups in 2022.
The current head of state, Captain Ibrahim Traore, has prioritized a strong security response to recapture land from rebel groups.
Ali Kabre, an independent journalist based in the capital, Ouagadougou, told Al Jazeera that the attacks were probably an attempt by armed groups to show that they “are still relevant in the country” after being repressed by the military who attacked with regular air raids.
Coordinated attacks
On February 25, several attacks occurred, including against a military detachment in Tankoualou in the east, a rapid response battalion in Kongoussi in the north, and soldiers in the northern region of Ouahigouya.
In response, the army and members of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP), a civilian force that supports the military, launched operations that managed to “neutralize several hundred terrorists,” according to security sources cited by AFP. .
Earlier this week, Security Minister Mahamadou Sana called the wave of attacks “coordinated.”
“This change in the enemy's tactical approach is because terrorist bases and training camps were destroyed, and actions were carried out to dry up the enemy's funding source as well as its supply corridors,” Sana said.
In the past, mosques and imams have been targets of attacks attributed to armed groups.
At times, churches in Burkina Faso have also been attacked and Christians kidnapped.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) says 439 people died in this type of violence in January alone.
