The balance sheet is much heavier than announced. At least 51 soldiers were killed Friday in an ambush by jihadists in northern Burkina Faso, according to a new provisional report released Monday by the army. “At the end of the day” on Monday, “43 new bodies were found, establishing the provisional toll at 51 fallen soldiers,” the army said in a statement. She had given a toll of eight soldiers killed on Monday morning.
Following this ambush against a “military unit between Deou and Oursi (Oudalan Province, Sahel region)” on Friday, “the units sent as reinforcements (…) have so far carried out search operations”, indicated a little earlier a press release from the army staff.
Counteroffensive
The army affirms that “about sixty terrorists were killed during the air counter-offensive which targeted the enemy columns which were trying to exfiltrate towards the border in the north”, towards Mali. “Seven armed vehicles and dozens of motorcycles were also destroyed.”
Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that appeared in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and which has spread beyond their borders. The violence left more than 10,000 dead – civilians and soldiers – according to NGOs, and some two million displaced.