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Forty-six killed in Burkina ethnic clashes

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Forty-six people were killed in central-northern Burkina Faso this week after a suspected jihadist attack triggered ethnic clashes, the government said on Friday.

Authorities initially said 13 died in violence in Yirgou village in Barsalogo district on Tuesday and Wednesday, but a government spokesman said the toll had increased to 46.

“It started with a terrorist attack in Yirgou that killed seven people including the village chief,” said spokesman Remis Fulgance Dandjinou.

“People pursuing the terrorists carried out a number of acts which led… to 46 victims being identified today, including the seven killed by terrorists.”

Residents said after the jihadist attack, villagers, who are from the Mossi ethnic group, attacked a nearby camp of nomadic Fulani herders, accusing them of being accomplices to the militants.

Burkina Faso lies in the heart of the sprawling, impoverished Sahel, on the southern rim of the Sahara.

The region became a hotbed of extremism after chaos engulfed Libya in 2011, followed by an Islamist insurgency in north Mali and the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Jihadist attacks began in northern Burkina Faso in 2015 but then spread to the east, near the border with Togo and Benin.

Burkina has declared a state of emergency in provinces within seven of the country’s 13 administrative regions, after 10 gendarmes were killed near the border with Mali.

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