Seventy-nine civilians were killed in the bloody attack in Seytenga, Burkina Faso, according to the latest report.
It sends shivers down your spine! In Seytenga, in the province of Séno, 276 kilometres north-east of Ouagadougou, the attack on civilians on the night of Saturday 11 to Sunday 12 June resulted in the death of 79 people. This is the toll communicated by the government twenty-four hours after an initial count of 50 civilian deaths.
On Monday evening, the president of the transition, Colonel-Lieutenant Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba, declared a three-day mourning period starting on Tuesday 14 June.
Symptomatic of the continuing deterioration of security in northern Burkina Faso, this attack attributed to jihadists of the Islamic State in the Sahel is the deadliest after the tragedy of Solhan in the province of Yagha (Sahel region) where 160 civilians had lost their lives.
The military came to power in January in a coup against Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, and took the gamble of reversing the trend.
Following this logic, President Damiba, opened himself to dialogue with the local jihadists. This position was reaffirmed during a visit on Saturday 11 January to Barani, in the centre-north, to decorate gendarmes in the wake of an attack that killed four members of the Rapid Action, Surveillance and Intervention Group (GARSI).
AC/cgd/lb/abj/APA