Burkina Faso: 5 soldiers killed in roadside bomb attack

James Tasamba

KIGALI, Rwanda (AA) - Five Burkina Faso soldiers were killed Friday after their vehicle was hit by a roadside explosive in a northern province, a security source said.

"A homemade explosive was used in an attack Friday morning against a military unit on patrol in a wildlife reserve in the Sahel a few kilometers west of Arbinda in Soum province, leaving five dead,” local media quoted a security source.

It added that reinforcements were sent to the zone to clear the area while the wounded were evacuated.

No group claimed responsibility for the latest attack on the country's armed forces.

But the Sahel region is home to many terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Daesh/ISIS.

Last week, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), said the region was in the midst of a devastating surge in terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets.

Chambas told the UN Security Council terrorist attacks have increased five-fold in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger since 2016, with more than 4,000 deaths reported in 2019 compared to roughly 770 deaths in 2016.

In Burkina Faso, deaths surged from about 80 in 2016 to north of 1,800 in 2019, he said.

Last December Burkina Faso witnessed a wave of attacks in which 35 civilians were killed, mostly women, and dozens of soldiers in an attack on a military base and a town in the north.