Suspected militants abducted roughly 60 women in insurgency-wracked northern Burkina Faso, local officials and residents said on Sunday. Roughly 40 were seized 10 kilometres southeast of Arbinda on Thursday and about 20 others were abducted on Friday to the north of the town, the sources said.
Several managed to escape and return to their villages to raise the alarm, they said. The landlocked West African country is one of the poorest and most volatile nations in the world.
Since 2015, it has been grappling with an insurgency led by militants affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group, that has killed tens of thousands and displaced around two million people.
According to local officials who confirmed the abductions, the army and its civilian auxiliaries have carried out unsuccessful sweeps of the area. The United Nations says nearly one million people are living in blockaded areas in the north and east.
