According to the governor of the region, armed militants on Thursday killed about 50 people in an area of eastern Burkina Faso ravaged by insurgency.
Colonel Hubert Yameogo, governor of the East Region, said it was unclear who was behind the attack on Wednesday against residents of the rural commune of Madjoari.
According to Yameogo, the victims were on their way to a town in the nearby commune of Pama, close to the borders with Benin and Togo.
In recent years, militants linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State have overrun large swaths of Burkina Faso as part of a larger insurgency in West Africa’s semi-arid Sahel region.
Over the last decade, the violence has grown and intensified, killing thousands of civilians each year.
The conflict has now spread to coastal West African countries such as Benin and Togo. This month, eight soldiers were killed and 13 were injured in northern Togo in what was most likely the country’s first deadly raid by militants.
The attack in Burkina Faso on Wednesday was the third this month in Madjoari. One attack killed 17 civilians and 11 soldiers.
Army officers enraged by worsening militant attacks deposed Burkina Faso‘s president in January and vowed to improve security, but violence has persisted.