Burkina Faso: Gunmen kill 20 civilians in attack Published duration 3 February Related Topics Sahel Islamist insurgency

As many as 20 civilians have been killed in an overnight attack in north-western Burkina Faso.

Unidentified heavily armed men on motorbikes carried out the attack in Lamdamol village in Seno province, north of the capital Ouagadougou, on Saturday night, AFP news agency says.

The attack comes a week after 39 people were killed when militants attacked a market in the province of Soum.

The Sahel region has seen an increase in jihadist violence in recent months.

News of Saturday's attack came as France announced it would send a further 600 soldiers to the Sahel region, bringing the total number of French troops to more than 5,000.

image copyright Reuters image caption Thousands have been displaced by violence in northern Burkina Faso

Last year saw the highest death toll due to armed conflict in the region since 2012, with more than 4,000 people killed.

The security crisis in the Sahel began when an alliance of separatist and Islamist militants took over northern Mali in 2012. France then launched a military intervention against them.

Although a peace deal was signed in 2015, it was never fully implemented.