An attack by insurgents killed 19 Burkina Faso military police and a civilian on Sunday in the tri-border northern region where the West African nation is battling militants, Security Minister Maxime Kone said.
Kone said the toll was provisional. “This morning a detachment of the gendarmerie suffered a cowardly and barbaric attack. They held their position,” Kone said on national television, adding that 22 survivors had been found. A security source said the assailants drove pickup trucks and motorbikes and engaged in “lengthy exchanges of gunfire” with the gendarmes.
The attack on a military police outpost near a gold mine in Inata came two days after another attack in which seven police were killed in the area near Niger and Mali.
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Two Burkina Faso security sources and a diplomatic source told Reuters earlier on Sunday that at least 30 military police were killed in the attack and the toll could be higher, making it one of the deadliest attacks on Burkina Faso troops.
A separate attack occurred in the morning in the town of Kelbo, also in Soum province, according to government spokesman Ousseni Tamboura.
“Fortunately, this attack was repelled by soldiers,” he said, adding that they were backed by volunteer civilian fighters and there were no casualties.
