Security officials and local sources said on Monday that an insurgents attack in southern Burkina Faso close to the Ghanaian border claimed the lives of six people, four of whom were teachers.
On Sunday, gunmen “opened fire on a group” in Bittou, according to a security source, who also stated that the assailants had escaped to the neighboring forest of Nouhao while being pursued by security personnel.
Four teachers from the neighborhood high school, including the head teacher, were among the six people who died, according to a regional federation of education unions.
In the Sahel region of West Africa, Burkina Faso is a poor, landlocked nation that has been fighting an insurgency for eight years.
Around two million people have fled their homes, and thousands of citizens, police officers, and security volunteers have killed.
Large portions of the country are no longer under government control, and the situation has caused unrest in the military that has led to two coups this year.
The 10-year-old insurgency campaign in the Sahel has raised concerns about a possible advance on the Gulf of Guinea’s vulnerable coast nations of Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Ivory Coast.
In the Centre-East region of Burkina Faso, Bittou is a significant commercial centre that sits alongside a major road not far from the country’s borders with Ghana and Togo.
Burkina Faso‘s military chief Captain Ibrahim Traore spoke on a recent coup attempt against his government last Thursday and acknowledged that some army units desired to take control.
After suspicions of a coup attempt against the interim government spread on social media last weekend, there was conjecture.
