Local prosecutor Lamine Kabore stated on Sunday, citing police in the town of Ouahigouya, that around 60 civilians were killed on Friday in northern Burkina Faso by people dressed in Burkinabe military uniforms.
He said that an investigation had been launched after the attack on the hamlet of Karma in Yatenga province near Mali’s border, an area long plagued by Islamist extremists linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Human Rights Watch said in March that since 2022, there has been an upsurge in attacks on civilians by armed groups, and that state security forces and volunteer defense troops have undertaken a series of harsh counter-terrorism operations.
According to the administration, on April 15, unidentified assailants assaulted the army and volunteer forces in the same region of northern Burkina Faso near Ouahigouya, killing 40 people and injuring 33 more.
Islamists took control of a Tuareg separatist insurgency in Mali in 2012, causing chaos across the area. Over 2.5 million people have been displaced as a consequence of the violence that started in Mali and has now spread to Burkina Faso and Niger.
