The world reacted in shock this week after 15 Catholics were killed during a Sunday prayer service led by a lay catechist in the village of Essakane, located in the northern region of the country, bordering Mali and Niger.
Father Jean-Pierre Sawadogo, vicar general of the diocese of Dori, deplored the killings as a terrorist attack, without however attributing culpability to a specific organization. In the same statement, Sawadogo prayed for the conversion of those who “continue to sow death and desolation in the country.”
The diocese of Dori confirmed According to Vatican News on Monday evening, 12 people were killed in the initial attack, while three others later died in hospital.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that a mosque in Natiaboani was attacked on Sunday by armed rebels around 5 a.m., leaving dozens dead.
“The terrorists entered the city early in the morning. They surrounded the mosque and fired on the faithful, gathered there for the first prayer of the day. Several of them were shot dead, including an important religious leader,” a local source told AFP. as shown in the French newspaper Le Monde.
The two attacks are the latest examples of a dramatic escalation of violence directed against religious groups in the country, which saw widespread destabilization caused by the 2014 Libyan civil war.
