OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – At least 51 soldiers were killed when their unit was ambushed in northern Burkina Faso on Friday, the army said on Monday, the latest reported incident in an area that has become a hotbed of jihadist activity.
The provisional death toll was revised up from eight reported earlier on Monday after an additional 43 bodies were found, it said in a statement.
The soldiers were attacked in Oudalan province, in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region, which shares a border with Mali.
The army did not directly blame anyone for the attack but said around 160 “terrorists” were killed in a counter-offensive air strike.
(Reporting by Thiam Ndiaga; Writing by Sofia Christensen; Editing by Christina Fincher and James Macharia Chege)
