Burkina Faso: Two Assaults Result In 18 Deaths.

At least 18 individuals, including 16 army auxiliary personnel, were murdered in two alleged terrorist strikes in Burkina Faso on Friday, according to security sources.

The latest assaults on a civilian auxiliary force that aids the military in its seven-year war against terrorists struck the north and northwest of the nation on Thursday.

One of the world’s poorest and most unstable countries is Burkina Faso, a landlocked country in West Africa.

Since 2015, it has been battling an insurgency that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of almost two million people. It is headed by jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

An advance team of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland (VDP) was the target of the first assault on Thursday in Rakoegtenga, a town in the northern province of Bam, according to a VDP spokesperson.

The assault left six auxiliary and a lady dead, the official added.

Ten persons, some of whom were critically hurt, were “evacuated to Ouagadougou for adequate treatment,” according to a VDP spokesman.

He said the second incident occurred in the northwest’s Nayala province “in the afternoon when a convoy accompanied by auxiliaries and troops was attacked on the Siena-Saran route,” killing around 10 auxiliaries and one civilian.

Security sources acknowledged two “jihadist assaults,” but they only mentioned “a number of casualties” rather than providing a definite death toll.