Burkina, ICoast To Step Up Fight Against Jihadists

Ouagadougou, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th May, 2021 ) :The defence ministers of Burkina Faso and neighbouring Ivory Coast on Monday said they would step up their fight against Islamists ravaging the region.

A brutal jihadist conflict in the Sahel nations of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has left vast swathes of territory outside of state control, and thousands of people dead.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Burkina Faso and one million have fled violence since 2015, when jihadists emerged in the formerly tranquil West African nation.

Burkinabe Defence Minister Cheriff Sy and his Ivorian counterpart Tene Birahima Ouattara held talks in Ouagadougou on Monday.

"We think that the fight against terrorism cannot be carried out by a sole state," Ouattara said.

"We have to pool our efforts, be informed and try and together put the means.

..to fight this scourge efficiently," he said.

Sy said there was already a bilateral commission on defence, security and intelligence in place and operations had been undertaken to secure their border.

However, there was a need to "define common strategy", he said.

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, witnessed its first deadly jihadist attack in 2016, when 19 people -- including several Westerners -- were killed in the seaside resort of Grand-Bassam.

Since last year it has suffered new attacks in its northern territory bordering Burkina Faso.

Fourteen Ivorian soldiers were killed in June last year.

On March 29 this year, two soldiers were killed and four more wounded when 60 heavily armed fighters swooped down from Burkina Faso and attacked an army post in Kafolo near the border.