Fate of 9-year-old Italian boy in cafe attack unclear

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevgeny Ignatovsky told 112 Ukraina television on Sunday that the woman and her husband owned the cafe where at least 10 people died in a hail of gunfire and smoke after the attackers set the building ablaze before moving on to a nearby hotel.

The death toll in the al-Qaeda terror attack on a top hotel in Burkina Faso rose to 29, while 56 others were wounded in the attack that loudly announced the end to a long, mostly peaceful stretch in Burkina Faso. The Canadian Press reported that the six were traveling together as part of a humanitarian mission, four them were from the same family. Seven bodies are yet to be identified, and the list is subject to change.

The American – Michael Riddering, 45, of Cooper City, Florida – had been working as a missionary in Burkina Faso since 2011, where he and his wife ran an orphanage that also provided shelter to abused women and widows.

Friday’s attacks left 28 people dead from at least nine different countries including Burkina Faso, Canada, France, Libya, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, Ukraine and the U.S.

According to provisional figures from the Burkinabe government, among the dead were eight Burkinabes, four Canadians, three Ukrainians, two Portuguese, two French, two Swiss and one Dutch citizen.

“They could take some time given the elevated number of victims from various countries”, it said. “And that’s backbreaking work”.

“There is a very strong political will on the part of the two states to combine our efforts to fight terrorism”, said Burkina Faso’s prime minister, Paul Kaba Thieba.

On Sunday, French authorities were back at the scene carrying out a forensic investigation.

Until recently Burkina Faso had largely escaped the tide of Islamist violence spreading in the restive Sahel region and the hotel assault will heighten fears that jihadist groups are casting their net wider in search of targets in west Africa.

In a separate incident two Australian humanitarian workers were kidnapped by extremists in northern Burkina Faso.

A family statement on Sunday says surgeon Ken Elliott and his wife Jocelyn disappeared on Friday night.