Clashes in Burkina Faso Leave at Least 16 Dead, Government Says

(Bloomberg) -- At least sixteen people died in inter-communal fighting in Burkina Faso’s north, days after the government declared a state of emergency in regions under threat from Islamist militant attacks.

Gunmen raided the village of Yirgou in the Barsalogho district, killing at least seven people, including the village chief, his sons and his brother, Territorial Administration Minister Simeon Sawadogo said on state TV late Wednesday. Men from the village then carried out a reprisal attack on a nearby ethnic Fulani community, he said.

Clashes between farming communities and ethnic Fulani herders have increased in West Africa in recent years. Similar violence between herders and farmers in neighboring Mali left 37 people dead on Tuesday. At the same time, Burkina Faso’s government said earlier this week it was struggling to secure its borders and had imposed a state of emergency in seven of the country’s 13 regions to prevent militant attacks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Gongo in Ouagadougou at sgongo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.net, Pauline Bax, Jacqueline Mackenzie

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