Burkina Aid Convoy Attack Toll Rises To 13

Ouagadougou, June 1 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jun, 2020 ) :The death toll from a weekend attack on an aid convoy in Burkina Faso rose to 13 Monday, the regional governor said, blaming "armed terrorists groups" for the ambush.

"The (death) toll is seven police and six civilians," Centre-North regional governor Casimir Segueda told media after visiting survivors in hospital following the attack.

Burkina Faso has suffered from increasingly frequent and deadly attacks attributed to a number of jihadist groups -- often referred to as "armed terrorist groups" - including the Group to Support islam and Muslims (GSIM) and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

"Six other police officers are missing," following the attack near the northern town of Barsalogho, he added.

Barsalogho mayor Abdoulaye Pafadnam confirmed the fatalities toll, adding that more than 40 people had been hospitalised in the town with seven of the more seriously injured taken to a regional clinic at nearby Kaya.

An earlier provisional toll had listed ten dead-- five civilians and five gendarmes .

The humanitarian convoy had been returning from the northern town of Foube after making a food delivery.

At least 53 people have been killed in a string of attacks in recent days in the west African country.

An attack on a livestock market in the east of the country earlier Saturday claimed at least 25 lives -- 30 according to local people.

Saturday's attacks came a day after 15 people were killed when a convoy of mainly shopkeepers escorted by a local self-defence unit came under fire from suspected Islamists in the northern province of Loroum.

The east and north of the former French colony are the hardest hit by attacks by jihadists, who have killed close on 1,000 people and caused some 860,000 people to flee their homes in the past five years.