One American dead in Burkina jihadist attack

But he says “there is still great worry” amid the apparent calm with concern the attackers were aiming to destabilize the area.

Dr Ken Elliot and his wife Jocelyn have been running a hospital called Centre Medico-Chirurgicale de Djibo, close to Burkina Faso’s border with Mali.

Around 50 unidentified gunmen attacked a Burkina Faso gendarmerie brigade near the country’s western border with Mali in October 2015, killing three in an attack the then government blamed on the leaders of a failed coup one month before.

Burkina officials gave no further details of the victims, but the French government announced on Saturday that two French citizens were among the dead.

Security forces from Burkina Faso and France exchanged heavy gunfire with the militants, who set fire to vehicles outside the hotel.

A U.S. State Department source told CBS News that a State Department security officer rescued three U.S. citizens and two French citizens.

“They started shooting, shooting and everybody lay down on the ground”, Mariette Kineou, a witness who was in the Cappuccino Cafe opposite hotel Splendid, told Reuters.

President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said Saturday that Burkina Faso and French forces killed the jihadist while searching the Hotel Yibi after ending the operation at the Splendid Hotel where they freed 126 people and killed three attackers.

“We are saddened by the loss of lives, specifically Canadians, and also all the lives that were impacted by the situation”, she said.

Gunfire could still be heard around the Hotel Splendid in the capital, Ouagadougou, as local forces backed by French gendarmes battled to take back the building. Those killed come from at least 18 different countries, and include two French nationals. A total of “126 people, including at least 33 wounded, have been freed”.

In a message posted in Arabic on the militants’ “Muslim Africa” Telegram account, the al Qaida group said fighters “broke into a restaurant of one of the biggest hotels in the capital of Burkina Faso, and are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion”.

The group calling itself the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for the attack.

In November previous year, AQIM gunmen killed 22 people in an attack on a Raddison Blu hotel in the capital of Mali, Bamako.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has told ONE News it has confirmed the wellbeing of the two New Zealanders registered with the Ministry on the Safe Travel website as being in Burkina Faso.

When darkness fell, more attackers joined them, he said.

“The elections went off well”, said Cynthia Ohayon, a security analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Burkina Faso, a largely Muslim country, has endured bouts of political turmoil since 2014 when veteran president Blaise Compaore was overthrown in a popular protest.