Burkina: Six civilians killed in attack near Ghana and Togo

Six civilians, including four teachers, were killed Sunday in an attack by suspected jihadists in Bittou, a town in Burkina Faso near the Ghana-Togo border, security and local sources said on Monday (November 5).

A group of armed men burst into a neighbourhood in Bittou late Sunday afternoon and opened fire on a group of workers, killing six people, a security source told AFP.

"The defence and security forces as well as the Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland (VDP), civilian auxiliaries to the army, "immediately set off after the terrorists, who retreated to the nearby Nouhao forest", according to this source.

Confirming the attack and the death toll, the regional coordination of the Federation of National Unions of Education and Research Workers (F-Synter), said in a statement that four teachers from the departmental high school of Bittou, including the headmaster, were among the victims.

"This cowardly and barbaric murder is the second to be suffered by education staff in our region after the one in Maytagou on 27 April 2019," said Ouédraogo Al Hassan, regional coordinator of F-Synter.

Located in the Centre-East region, Bittou is on the road between Ouagadougou and Lomé. It is an important town close to the borders of Togo and Ghana where commercial activity is very important. Since 2015, Burkina Faso has been regularly plagued by increasingly frequent jihadist attacks that have killed thousands and forced some two million people to flee their homes.

These attacks have increased in recent months, mainly in the north and east of the country.

On 26 November, four Burkinabe soldiers were killed in an improvised explosive device in the north of the country and three civilians died in another attack in the north-east, according to security and local sources.