A church in eastern Burkina Faso suffered a deadly Islamist attack that claimed the lives of at least 14 people and injuring dozens of others. According to intelligence reports armed men in scooters attacked the church during the Sunday service before fleeing.
The attack occurred during a Sunday service at a Protestant church in the town of Hantoukoura near the border with Niger. Soldiers in the region were hunting down the assailants, who fled on scooters in an area that has been experiencing such attacks on Christians.
Burkina Faso has been battling an escalating wave of attacks over the last three years, beginning in the North Region near the border with Mali. Attacks have spread to the East Region, near the border with Togo, Benin and Niger, and to a lesser extent, the west of the country.
Most insurgent attacks are attributed to the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM) which has sworn allegiance to AQIM, and to Ansar ul Islam, which emerged near the Mali border in December 2016. Since May, Islamic State has attributed insurgent activities in the Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger tri-border area to its West Africa Province affiliate, rather than to what was previously known as Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
