The pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) denounced that jihadists recently murdered 26 men inside a Christian church. Catholics are also among the victims of Islamic extremists.
The massacre occurred on August 25, in the midst of an extremist attack on the town of Sanaba, in western Burkina Faso.
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ACN reports that the jihadists surrounded the town, gathered its inhabitants “and tied up all Christian males over 12 years of age, followers of the traditional cult and those they considered opponents of the jihadist ideology.”
They took all of them to a nearby Christian church and cut the throats of 26 men.
The pontifical foundation indicated that the attack occurred just a day after an attack committed by extremists in the village of Barsalogho. There, he specifies, “although the official figure is 150”, the number of dead could exceed 250 people, in addition to 150 seriously injured.
ACN sources indicate that due to the violence of Islamic extremists “about 5,000 women and children have sought refuge in the city of Nouna”, in the northwestern part of the country, near the border with Mali.
“There is not a single male among them. The whereabouts of the male population remains unknown, we do not know if they have escaped and are hiding or have been murdered,” adds the anonymous source cited by ACN.
According to the pontifical foundation, since May 2024, approximately 100 Christians have been murdered in the northwestern area of Burkina Faso, while “others have been kidnapped, with no news of their whereabouts.”
In the Diocese of Nouna, which includes towns such as Sanaba and Zekuy, “a large number of Catholic, Protestant and animist places of worship have been destroyed or burned in recent months,” indicates ACN.
One of his witnesses relates that recently, in Zekuy, a “catechist realized that they were going to be attacked when he heard the noise of the motorcycles and managed to rescue the holy sacrament from the parish church, fleeing with the rest of the population to the forest.” .
“Fortunately that day there were no victims, but the church was vandalized, the statues destroyed, they tried to desecrate the tabernacle and painted inscriptions on the walls that had a fresco of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” he says.
According to the World Religious Freedom Report 2023 According to ACN, Burkina Faso faces increasing persecution against Christians, mainly due to “Islamist extremism.” In the country, the percentage of Christians is 23.33; while Muslims make up 54.54% of the population.
“This West African country was long considered an example of peaceful coexistence between religions. However, since late 2015 the country has become a hotspot for violent extremists and is now one of the main scenes of jihadist terror in the Sahel”, points out the report.
David Ramos
Graduated in Communication Sciences from the Universidad Privada del Norte in Trujillo, Peru. With more than 12 years of experience in Catholic journalism working at ACI Prensa, I have been based in Mexico since 2018. I have covered Pope Francis’ trips to Ecuador, Paraguay, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Panama.