Suspected militants killed 132 civilians and injured dozens more in an attack on a village in northern Burkina Faso, punctuating a recent spike in violence.
The attackers opened fire into a populated area of Solhan late Friday or early Saturday, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said in a tweet calling the attack “despicable.” Several homes and the village's market were burnt down, a government spokesman said in a separate statement.
“We must stand united against these forces of evil,” Kabore said.
The overnight attack on Solhan, near the northern border with Niger, is the deadliest single assault on civilians in Burkina Faso since 2015, when spillover from an Islamist rebellion in neighboring Mali mixed with a homegrown insurgency.
It follows an increase in attacks after an unofficial cease-fire between authorities and some armed groups ahead of presidential polls in November saw a drop in deadly violence.
The government didn't say who might be responsible for the latest incident, but affiliates of al-Qaeda and Islamic State are operating in the area.
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