Dozens dead or injured in attacks on Burkina military HQ, French embassy

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso | AFP | Armed men attacked the French embassy in Burkina Faso and the country’s military headquarters on Friday before being repelled in a battle that left dozens dead or injured.

A government source said 16 attackers and defenders died, while other sources reached by AFP from Paris sketched a bloodier outcome, with at least 28 killed.

The coordinated offensive underscored the fragility of the Sahel nation, one of a string of African states struggling with a bloody jihadist insurgency.

Heavy gunfire broke out mid-morning in the centre of the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou.

Witnesses said five armed men got out of a car and opened fire on passersby before heading towards the French embassy. The car was later seen ablaze.

At the same time, an explosion occurred near the headquarters of the Burkinabe armed forces and the French cultural centre, which are located about a kilometre (half a mile) from the site of the first attack, other witnesses said.

A government source said 16 people — nine assailants and seven members of the security forces — had died, most of them in the attack on the military HQ. The army’s medical chief, Colonel Amado Kafando, said 75 others had been injured.

Three security sources, two in France and one in West Africa, told AFP in Paris that at least 28 people were killed in the attack on the military HQ alone.

French government sources said there had been no French casualties and described the situation in Ouagadougou as “under control”.

French military spokesman Colonel Patrick Steiger told AFP said French forces in Burkina Faso “intervened in support” of the local military but “did not directly take part in the action.

“They went to the French embassy but the situation “was already resolved when they arrived,” Steiger said.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office said it had opened a formal investigation into “attempted murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise”, an expected procedural step after attacks targeting French citizens or interests.

– ‘Overtones of terrorism’ –

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Information Minister Remis Fulgance Dandjinou said the attack “has strong overtones of terrorism”.

Burkina Faso has a history of military-backed coups as well as of jihadist attacks.

The country is one of a group of fragile states on the southern rim of the Sahara that are battling jihadist groups.