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Authorities in Burkina Faso announced on Friday the release of sixty-six women and young children captured by an armed group last week in the north of the country.
Sixty-two women and four babies were released on Friday, January 20, by the armed forces of the Burkina Fasomore than a week after their abduction in the north of the country by suspected jihadists, state television and a security source said.
In its 8:00 p.m. news (GMT and local), Radio-Television du Burkina (RTB) showed images of these women, released on Friday and brought back to Ouagadougou, evoking an “operation” of the armed forces, without further details. .
Several security sources confirmed to AFP their release.
These women had been abducted Thursday and Friday and their babies in the vicinity of Arbinda, in the Sahel region (north) when they left their village to look for food.
According to security sources, they were found in the Tougouri area, in the neighboring Centre-Nord region, 200 km further south, before being airlifted to the Burkinabè capital in the evening where they were welcomed by officials. of the Army.
“Their debriefing will make it possible to learn more about their kidnappers, their detention and their convoy”, continues one of the security sources.
Jihadist threat
Searches, land and air, had been launched to find them. Part of the country, in particular the Sahel region where Arbinda is located, has been under blockade for several months jihadist groups and the localities are hardly supplied with food, which pushes the inhabitants to leave their villages to find food.
Thursday, Burkina Faso was bereaved by a series of attacks in several regions of the north and north-west of the country: about thirty people, including about fifteen Homeland Defense Volunteers (VDP), auxiliaries of the army, are dead.
Burkina Faso, particularly in its northern half, has been confronted since 2015 with attacks by jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. These left thousands dead and at least two million displaced.
Captain Ibrahim Traoré, transitional president resulting from a military coup on September 30 – the second in eight months – has set himself the objective of “recapturing the territory occupied by these hordes of terrorists”.
With AFP