‘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.

West African bloc said country’s second military coup in nine months was ‘inappropriate’

Gunshots rang out in Burkina Faso’s capital amid signs of lingering tensions a day after a group of military officers overthrew the man who had seized power in a coup only nine months earlier.

Roads remained blocked off in Ouagadougou, where a helicopter could be heard flying overhead. An internal security analysis for the EU seen by the Associated Press said there was “abnormal military movement” in the city.

Army officer Captain Ibrahim Traore has overthrown Paul-Henri Damiba, eight months after he took power

Members of Burkina Faso’s army have seized control of state television, declaring that they had ousted military leader Paul-Henri Damiba, dissolved the government and suspended the constitution and transitional charter.

In a statement read on national television late on Friday, Captain Ibrahim Traore said a group of officers had decided to remove Damiba due to his inability to deal with a worsening Islamist insurgency. He announced that borders were closed indefinitely and that all political and civil society activities were suspended.

Mounting violence in the north of the country linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group

Gunmen killed at least 55 people over the weekend in northern Burkina Faso, in the latest attack in the west African country, which is seeing mounting violence blamed on Islamic extremists.

Suspected militants targeted civilians in Seytenga in Séno province, government spokesman Wendkouni Joel Lionel Bilgo said at a news conference. While the government put the official toll at 55, others put the figure far higher, with some saying as many as 100 had died.

Blaise Compaoré sentenced to life imprisonment at military tribunal over role in 1987 killing of Thomas Sankara

Burkina Faso’s former president Blaise Compaoré has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of complicity in the 1987 murder of his predecessor Thomas Sankara, concluding a landmark trial and a decades-long quest for justice.

Sankara, a Marxist icon of pan-Africanism hailed across Africa and beyond, was gunned down along with 12 colleagues in the west African nation’s capital, Ouagadougou, at the age of 37, four years after he took power in a coup.

Mutiny follows public protests calling for Roch Marc Kaboré to resign over handling of jihadist threat

Burkina Faso’s president, Roch Marc Kaboré, has been arrested and detained by soldiers, according to local reports, in a coup attempt following heavy gunfire heard around his home in the capital, Ouagadougou, on Sunday night.

On Monday morning, armoured vehicles belonging to his presidential guard were seen covered in bullets and the seats soaked in blood, near the president’s residence.