More than 60 people have been killed in tit-for-tat clashes between communities in northern Burkina Faso in recent days, the government said on Wednesday, the latest in a bout of inter-communal violence afflicting West Africa’s Sahel region.

Burkina Faso and neighboring Mali have seen a spike in ethnic clashes fueled by Islamist militants as they seek to extend their influence over the Sahel, an arid region between Africa’s northern Sahara and its southern savannas.

Islamist attacks have risen in recent months, and the violence has reignited longstanding tensions between communities as certain groups are blamed for collaborating with the jihadists.

New violence arose near the town of Arbinda in Burkina’s Soum Province on Sunday night, when a religious leader and six of his family members were killed by unidentified armed men, the ruling Movement of People for Progress party said in a statement on Wednesday.