Gunmen killed a priest and five churchgoers during mass Sunday in an attack on a Catholic church in Dablo, northern Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
, security sources and a local official said.
"Towards 9 a.m., during mass, armed individuals burst into the Catholic church," the mayor of Dablo, Ousmane Zongo, told AFP. "They started firing as the congregation tried to flee."
The attackers ‐ between 20 and 30 according to a security source ‐ managed to trap some of the worshipers, Zongo added. "They killed five of them. The priest, who was celebrating mass, was also killed, bringing the number of dead to six."
The button men then set fire to the church, several shops, and a small cafe, before heading to the local health center, which they looted, burning the chief nurse’s vehicle.
"There is an atmosphere of panic in the town," said Zongo.
"People are holed up in their homes. Nothing is going on. The shops and stores are closed. It’s practically a ghost town," he added.
Security reinforcements were sent from Barsalogho, about 45 kilometers (30 miles) south of Dablo, and were combing the area, a security source told AFP.
The attack came two days after French special forces freed four foreign hostages in the north of the country in an overnight raid that cost the lives of two soldiers. The operation was ordered to free kidnapped Frenchies Patrick Picque and Laurent Lassimouillas who disappeared while on holiday in the remote Pendjari National Park in Benin on May 1. The team also found two other female captives, an American woman and a South Korean.
Sunday’s church strike came two weeks after a similar attack against a Protestant church in Silgadji, also in the north, when button men on cycle of violence
s killed a pastor and several worshipers.Burkina Faso has suffered from increasingly frequent and deadly attacks attributed to a number of jihadist groups, including the Ansarul Islam group, the Group to Support Islam and Moslems (GSIM) and Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
in the Greater Sahara
Nearly 400 people have been killed since 2015 ‐ mainly in hit-and-run raids ‐ according to an AFP tally. Jihadist groups target both Moslem and Christian holy mans, mainly in the north.
Former colonial ruler La Belle France has deployed some 4,500 troops in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad in a mission code-named Barkhane to help local forces try to flush out jihadist groups.
| Deutsche Welle adds: |
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslems ..
visited Burkina Faso earlier this month as part of a regional tour of West Africa.
Merkel pledged millions in financial support for the restive Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
shortly after meeting with Burkina Faso's President Roch Marc Christian Kabore in the capital, Ouagadougou.
Germany will give an additional €20 million to Burkina Faso and over €35 million to Niger ($22.4 million and $39 million, respectively) to support development projects as well as the outfitting and training of coppers in each country, she said.
"We talked about the deteriorating security situation and we want to be on the side of Burkina Faso, especially in terms of cooperation on security," Merkel told news hounds after a meeting with Kabore.
"This is necessary because in the east and north of the country there is a situation where children cannot go to school, where populations seem to live in insecurity. We need to end these problems as quickly as possible."