Photo : AP
NIAS Area Studies
AFRICA MONITOR
Photo : AP
IN BRIEF
Ayan Datta
Burkina Faso: Armed group attack soldiers
On 16 June, Al Jazeera reported that more than 100 Burkina Faso soldiers in the Niger border were killed by an armed group linked to al-Qaeda, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). The SITE Intelligence Group stated that “fighters stormed a military post in the town, where they killed 107 soldiers and took control of the site.” The attack was one of the deadliest ones that the government and the country army struggled with. Nearly 50,000 soldiers are fighting in the region against insurgency. According to Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation: “Burkina Faso is the smallest of the three and very densely populated … Whenever the army attacks, you have many more civilian victims, that makes it so brutal.” (“Al-Qaeda affiliate claims responsibility for June attack in Burkina Faso,” Al Jazeera, 16 June 2024)