Islamic extremists slaughtered more than 50 people this week in an attack in eastern Burkina Faso, AsiaNews reported this weekend.
This attack was carried out last Wednesday near the commune of Madjoari, a village with some 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants, and is the bloodiest jihadist assault in the country since one carried out a year ago in Solhan, in the northeast, which killed 132 people.
Residents of Madjoari attempting to flee a jihadist blockade of their village were “targeted” by the gunmen near a bridge, where they were shot to death, said Colonel Hubert Yameogo, governor of the eastern region.
One witness noted that the gunmen intercepted and then executed the victims, all of whom were male.
Madjoari is one of several towns placed under blockade by jihadists in the north and east of Burkina Faso, others being Djibo and Titao.
While the army sometimes manages to get supply convoys into these towns, when they fail to do so, desperate inhabitants will often try to flee, which is what has been occurring in Madjoari over the last ten days.
The spokesman for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Guterres “strongly condemns the killing of some 50 people, reportedly by extremist armed groups, on 25 May in Madjoari, in the east of Burkina Faso.”
“The Secretary General expresses his condolences to the bereaved families and calls on the Burkinabe authorities to spare no effort in identifying and swiftly bringing the perpetrators to justice,” he said.
The northern and eastern regions of Burkina Faso have seen ongoing jihadist assaults over the past seven years perpetrated by groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State resulting in the deaths of more than 2,000 civilians and soldiers and the displacement of some 2 million.
Madjoari has been particularly hard hit. On May 14, Islamists attacked the civilian population of the town, killing seventeen people and injuring seven. Five days later, gunmen attacked a military detachment in Madjoari, killing eleven soldiers and wounding twenty others.
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