Six Canadians killed in terrorist attack

“The Burkinabe nation is in shock”, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who took office just last month, said in a radio and television address.

Also on Saturday, His Majesty sent a cable to Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, offering his deepest condolences over the killing of several Kenyan soldiers in the attack on a base for African Union peacekeepers in southwestern Somalia.

Burkina Faso declared three days of national mourning following the attack, which mirrored another Al-Qaeda attack on a luxury hotel in neighbouring Mali where 20 people were killed, mostly foreigners.

The Burkina government said the pair were kidnapped in Baraboule, near the west African country’s borders with Niger and Mali.

“These truly barbaric criminal acts carried out against innocent people, claimed by the criminal organization al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) seek to destabilize our country and its republican institutions, and to undermine efforts to build a democratic, quiet and prosperous nation”, said Kabore.

A nine-year-old Italian boy and his mother were killed in the assault on Cappuccino, the restaurant attacked opposite the Splendid Hotel, Italy’s foreign ministry said on Sunday.

Some guests returned to the Splendid Hotel to pick up their luggage and other belongings left behind when guests fled for their lives when the gunmen began firing to kill as many people as possible.

About 33 people were wounded, said Minister of Security and Internal Affairs Compaore.

He said the two were alive and more details would be released soon.

At least six Canadians, two French citizens, two Swiss nationals, one Netherlander and one American were killed in the attack, according to their respective foreign ministries. A resident in the town of Djibo, near Baraboule, said the couple had lived in the area since 1972.

Burkina Faso and Mali have agreed to work together to counter the growing threat of Islamic militants in West Africa by sharing intelligence and conducting joint security patrols following two deadly and well-coordinated attacks in the region. “They got it wrong”, said Gilbert, a witness who gave only his first name. Members of the military jockeyed for power, and the country suffered through a short-lived coup earlier this year before democratic elections were allowed to go forward in November.

The other two Canadian victims were also from Quebec and were friends of Carrier’s family. Belmoktar was a former leader in AQIM before starting his own group, which now has merged back with al-Qaida.