Burkina Faso: Gunmen kill 50 civilians

Around 50 people were killed by armed assailants in eastern Burkina Faso, authorities said on Thursday.

The area has been struggling with Islamic extremist violence but it was not immediately clear who was behind the latest attack. 

What we know about the attack

The victims were residents of the rural commune of Madjoari, according to Colonel Hubert Yameogo, the governor of the East Region.

They were traveling to a town in the nearby commune of Pama, which is close to the country's borders with Benin and Togo. They had been trying to escape a blockade set up by extremists.

"The people were intercepted and executed by the terrorists," one survivor told news agency AFP. "All the dead were men."

Authorities said the army was securing the area but no more details on the perpetrators were provided.

Spike in violence

Militants with links to al-Qaida and the Islamic State (IS) group have made inroads into large parts of Burkina Faso in recent years, as a part of a wider insurgency across West Africa's restive Sahel region.

Over the last decade, the violence has escalated, resulting in the killing of thousands of civilians each year.

Madjoari saw two other attacks this month, with one killing 17 civilians and another killing 11 soldiers.

Burkina Faso’s president was overthrown in a coup in January after members of the armed forces expressed anger over worsening militant attacks. However, levels of violence have remained high.

Earlier this month, eight soldiers were killed and 13 wounded in Burkina Faso’s neighboring state of Togo, possibly the first deadly raid in the country by militants.

see/rs (Reuters, dpa, AFP)