Burkina attacks death toll climbs to 29: security minister

It will be recalled that terrorists on Friday night, attacked Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou where 26 persons were reportedly killed and a other 56 injured.

The North Africa branch of al Qaida, founded in Algeria, said it carried out the bloodbath even as it was unfolding in a series of statements published and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

Three attackers were killed at the hotel and a fourth was killed when security forces cleared out a second hotel nearby.

The hotel attack was the first of its kind in Ouagadougou and came as people were tentatively enjoying a return to stability after November elections which ended a shaky transitional period since veteran leader Blaise Compaore’s 2014 ouster, including a failed coup.

People in Burkina Faso are campaigning for the release of an Australian doctor and his wife, kidnapped the same day as the attack on the capital. There were claims that some of those involved were women.

The family was said to be doing humanitarian work in the country.

The victims of the pogrom were said to be having drinks outside and in a popular hotel, before the tragedy struck, as their assailants screamed Allahu akhbar (Arabic for God is great) as gunned them down. “And that’s backbreaking work”.

The West Australian couple, aged in their 80s, moved to Burkina Faso in 1972 to set up the clinic in the town of Djibo in the country’s north.

“They have dedicated their lives to providing medical relief to people in the remote northern area of Burkina Faso”, the statement said.

France has promised to send forensic police to help investigate the attack and a French court has opened up a murder inquiry.

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.

Until Friday’s attack, the West African country had been spared the jihadist violence experienced by its neighbors.

The two were kidnapped from Djibo, the capital of the northern Soum province in the Sahel near the border with Mali, he said.

Rescue workers inspect damaged cars at the entrance of the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016.

Sheltering Wings, a missionary group that runs the orphanage Riddering worked for, provided a detailed account of his ordeal.

The whereabouts of the couple are still unknown, with no reason given for their abduction, says the family spokesperson.