Security Minister Maxime Kone, on Monday two terrorist attacks within a space of three day left 27 people dead in Burkina Faso. Kone said one civilian and 19 gendarmes were killed in an attack on a gendarmerie post in the northern province of Soum on Sunday.
According to a military spokesperson, around 60 gendarmes have been missing since the attack in the village of Inata. Two days earlier, seven police officers died in another attack on a rural road in Soum, Kone said. The former French colony with its 21 million inhabitants is located in the Sahel, an area stretching south of the Sahara from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.
Armed groups are active there, some of which have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. Burkina Faso had long been spared attacks, but their number has been on the rise significantly since 2015. According to the United Nations, more than 1.2 million people are now refugees in their own country.
Many militias operate across the borders into Mali and other states. Attacks on military and police posts have increased in recent weeks, especially near the border with neighbouring Mali. At the end of October, unknown extremists killed almost two dozen people in an attack on a police station in the region.
