Regional prosecutor says he received reports of deaths in three northern settlements as jihadist violence flares

About 170 people were “executed” in attacks on three villages in northern Burkina Faso a week ago, a regional prosecutor has said, as jihadist violence flares in the junta-ruled country.

On that same day, 25 February, separate attacks on a mosque in eastern Burkina and a Catholic church in the north left dozens more dead.

Operations still under way in bid to retake territory in northern Yatenga province

Seventeen soldiers and 36 volunteer fighters have been killed in heavy clashes with militants in northern Burkina Faso, the army has said. It is the worst attack in months in the west African country that has been fighting hardline militants for years.

Burkina Faso has been battling armed groups, some with links to al-Qaida and Islamic State, in its northern desert region since 2015.

‘Armed terrorist groups’ attacked two villages in northeastern Burkina Faso, near the Niger border

Forty-four civilians have been killed by “armed terrorist groups” in two villages in north-eastern Burkina Faso, near the Niger border, a regional governor said Saturday.

The provisional toll of “this despicable and barbaric attack” which targeted the villages of Kourakou and Tondobi overnight on Thursday “is 44 civilians killed and others wounded,” said Rodolphe Sorgho, lieutenant-governor of the Sahel region.

Security forces stage rescue operation in country which is facing violent Islamist insurgency

Sixty-six women and children kidnapped by armed assailants in northern Burkina Faso last week have been freed, it has been reported.

The mass kidnapping was unprecedented in Burkina Faso, which is facing a violent Islamist insurgency that spread from neighbouring Mali in 2015.