OUAGADOUGOU-Twenty-eight people have died in new attacks in Burkina Faso, including 15 who had been abducted at the weekend, the authorities said Tuesday.
Fifteen bodies bearing bullet impacts were found on Monday near Linguekoro, a village in the western province of Comoe, regional governor Colonel Jean-Charles Some said in a statement.
They were among 24 people who were aboard two minibuses travelling from Banfora that were stopped in Linguekoro by armed men on Sunday evening, he said. “The passengers, comprising eight men and 16 women, were told to get off,” he said. “Eight women and one man were released and told to walk to Mangodara,” 30 kilometres (18 miles) away, he said. The two minibuses were then torched and the 15 other passengers taken away.
Separately, 10 police officers, two members of an auxiliary force supporting the army, and a civilian died in northern Burkina Faso from a “terrorist attack on Monday” in the locality of Falagountou, which also goes by the spelling of Falangoutou, army headquarters said.
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At least five police were wounded and about 10 are missing, while the bodies of about 15 “terrorists” were found during a sweep, it said.
The attacks mark a further escalation in an insurgency that has beset Burkina, one of the world’s poorest and most troubled countries, for more than seven years.