At least 15 people were killed and two others wounded when gunmen stormed a Catholic church in a remote village in northern Burkina Faso on Sunday, according to church officials and local sources.
The attack took place during the morning mass in Essakane, a village in Oudalan province near the border with Mali, where Islamist militants have been active for years.
The assailants arrived on motorcycles and opened fire on the congregation, killing 12 people on the spot and three others who succumbed to their injuries at a nearby health center, said Abbot Jean-Pierre Sawadogo, the vicar-general of the Catholic Diocese of Dori.
He condemned the attack as a “terrorist act” and called for prayers for the victims and their families.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion fell on jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State, which have carried out similar attacks on churches and other targets in Burkina Faso and neighboring countries.
The attack was the latest in a series of violent incidents that have plagued Burkina Faso since 2016, when the country’s security situation deteriorated following a coup that ousted longtime president Blaise Compaoré.
More than 2,000 people have been killed and over 1.2 million displaced by the conflict, which has also affected access to education, health, and humanitarian aid.
The government, backed by regional and international partners, has been struggling to contain the insurgency, which has spread from the north to the east and the west of the country.
The attack also came amid growing tensions between the military junta that seized power in a second coup in September 2022 and the regional bloc ECOWAS, which has imposed sanctions and demanded a return to civilian rule.
