170 villagers were killed in Burkina Faso

Roughly 170 people were “killed” in attacks on three villages in northern Burkina Faso last week, a regional prosecutor said in a statement on Sunday.

Aly Benjamin Coulibaly stated that the attacks took place in the villages of Komsilga, Nodin, and Soroe in the Yatenga province on February 25, with an estimated “approximately 170 people” killed. An investigation has been launched into the attacks by unidentified individuals, he added.

The West African Sahel nation has been grappling with insurgency spilling over from neighboring Mali over the past decade, resulting in thousands of deaths and over two million people displaced from their homes.