According to security sources, four attacks in Burkina Faso killed dozens of people.
About 30 people, including 16 volunteers supporting the army, were killed in four suspected terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso, according to security sources on Friday.
The Thursday strikes were the most recent to target a civilian auxiliary force assisting the military in their seven-year conflict with jihadists in the unstable West African country.
Since 2015, jihadis linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State have been leading an insurgency in Burkina Faso that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and 2 million displaced residents.
Under the condition of anonymity, a VDP official said that the “first attack” was aimed at an advance group of VDP members in Rakoegtenga, a town in the northern province of Bam.
In the assault, six auxiliary soldiers and a woman perished, he claimed.
Ten people, some critically hurt, were “evacuated to Ouagadougou for adequate care,” according to the VDP spokesman.
He said that in the second attack, which happened in the northwest’s Nayala region “in the afternoon when a convoy escorted by auxiliaries and soldiers was attacked,” about ten auxiliaries and one person were killed.
Security sources confirmed that there were two attacks, but they only talked about “a handful of losses” and didn’t say how many people died.
The VDP was established in December 2019 and consists of civilian volunteers who undergo two weeks of military training before working alongside the army, generally doing surveillance, information collection, or escorting missions.
Other security sources state that there were two other incidents on Thursday that were connected to armed jihadi organizations. One of them claimed that a joint military and VDP squad was attacked in Zincko, in the north-central province of Sanmatenga.
READ ALSO: Military: Soldier killed in Jihadi ambush in Cameroon
“There were about ten terrorists dead or neutralized.” Sadly, four innocent bystanders also perished, according to the source.
Later that evening, gunmen conducted a raid on the town of Sanaba in the Banwa province, which resulted in the deaths of eight civilians.
Some people worry that the poorly trained volunteers could make things worse between different groups because jihadists could easily target them.
90,000 people signed up for the 50,000 VDP that authorities were trying to recruit by the end of last year, but hundreds of volunteers have perished, mostly in ambushes or roadside bombings.
In the past few months, there has been more violence against security personnel and civilians, especially in the north and east near Mali and Niger, where jihadists are active.
Last year, there were two military coups because the number of deaths kept going up and officers were angry that they couldn’t stop it.
