Burkina Faso Army admits killing civilians in counter-terrorist strike
Burkina Faso’s army on Wednesday said that it accidentally killed civilians during a counter-terrorist operation in the country’s southeast earlier this week.
According to the army, West African country has been battling an insurgency by Islamist militant groups, some which were linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, which control large swathes of territory and wage frequent attacks.
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“During operations which made it possible to neutralise several dozen terrorists, the strikes unfortunately caused collateral victims within the civilian population,’’ the army said in a statement.
It did not say how many civilians were killed. The victims were hit by projectiles in the zone between Kompienga and Pognoa, near the border with Togo, earlier on Monday, it said.
Togo, which has been contending with the spillover of militancy from Burkina Faso, accidentally killed seven civilians in an air strike in July near the same border.
