The army announced on Saturday that four auxiliary soldiers from Burkina Faso and one Burkinabe policeman were killed in an attack in the central region of the country.
“Following an attack on Friday against a VDP position (Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, civilian auxiliaries to the army) in the vicinity of Silmiougou,” police units were deployed as reinforcements, the army general staff said in a press release.
“One police officer and four VDPs unfortunately lost their lives during the fighting,” the statement continued, adding that their forces had killed “around 10 terrorists” and forced them to retreat.
During mid-July, Burkina Faso’s interim president, Captain Ibrahim Traore, who assumed control following a September 2022 coup, expressed deep concern about the “increasingly recurrent attacks against civilians”,denouncing the jihadists for their “cowardly” actions.
The evident cause behind the two recent coups in the country stemmed from frustration over the inability to contain a jihadist insurgency that spilled over from neighboring Mali in 2015.
An NGO count reveals that over 16,000 civilians, military personnel, and police have lost their lives in jihadist assaults, with over 5,000 fatalities reported since the beginning of this year.
With over two million individuals displaced within Burkina Faso, it has become one of the most severe internal displacement crises in Africa.
In a distinct announcement on Saturday, the Burkinabe army reported that “over 65 terrorists” were neutralized in the western region of the country from August 7 to September 1.
“Large quantities of weapons, ammunition, foodstuffs, vehicles and communications equipment were recovered” at the same time from “dismantled terrorist bases”, it added.
