Ouagadougou (AFP) – Violence in Burkina Faso has caused more than a quarter of a million people to flee their homes over the last three months, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday.

“Some 486,000 have been forced to flee within the country, 267,000 of whom in the past three months alone. A further 16,000 are refugees in neighbouring countries,” the agency’s spokesman, Andrew Mbogori, said in a statement received by AFP.