Seven members of the security forces died, while 80 insurgents were reported killed

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

Jihadists in Burkina Faso have killed 35 civilians, mostly women, after attacking a military outpost in northern Soum province, authorities have said.

The violence, which erupted in the town of Arbinda near the country’s border with Mali, lasted for several hours, according to a military statement. Seven members of the security forces who responded died, while 80 insurgents were reported killed.

Of the civilian victims, 31 were women. It was not immediately clear where they were at the time of the attack or why so many died.

President Roch Marc Kaboré declared two days of national mourning in the west African country in response to the attack.

“The heroic action of our soldiers has made it possible to neutralise 80 terrorists,” he said. “This barbaric attack resulted in the death of 35 civilians, most of them women.”

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For years Burkina Faso was spared the kind of Islamic extremism long seen across the border in Mali, where it took a 2013 French-led military intervention to dislodge jihadists from power in several major towns.

That changed with a pair of deadly attacks in 2016 and 2017 in the capital of Ouagadougou, both of which targeted spots popular with foreigners.

Frequent attacks in the country’s north and east have already displaced more than a half million people, according to the United Nations.

Attacks over the past year have killed hundreds: at least 37 civilians were killed in the east last month when suspected jihadists ambushed a convoy carrying employees of Canadian mining company Semafo in the east of the country.

While Burkina Faso’s military has received training from both former coloniser France and the United States, it has so far failed to stem the surge in extremist violence.