Islamic jihadists attack 3rd church in a month in Burkina Faso
Islamic militants killed six people attending mass at a Catholic church in Burkina Faso on Sunday morning, officials said.
Witnesses said the priest and five churchgoers were killed and several others were injured in the attack on the Catholic Church of Dablo in the landlocked West African ｃountry, VOA Africa reported.
“They were about 40 on motorcycles,” a witness said. “They made everyone lie down, ｅxecuted five before torching the church.”
The attackers stormed the mass on Sunday morning and then proceeded to set fire to the church and surrounding shops.
Burkina Faso has experienced terrorist attacks on Christians since April 2015 and last month six people, including a pastor, were killed by armed assailants on motorcycles at a Protestant church in the community of Sigadji. [Prior to that, four Christians were killed in the town of Dori, according to a Catholic bishop there, who said armed men also destroyed parts of the town.]
Dablo, Silgadji and Dori are all in the north of Burkina Faso, which has suffered from increasingly frequent and deadly attacks attributed to a number of jihadi groups, including the Ansarul Islam group, the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
The effect of the attack on Dablo has been striking, according to its mayor, Ousmane Zongo. Beyond the grief of the affected families and the wider community, Zongo told the AFP the town is gripped with fear.
“Towards 9:00am, during mass, armed individuals burst into the Catholic Church,” Zongo, told AFP. “They started firing as the congregation tried to flee. They burned down the church, then shops and a small restaurant before going to the health center where they searched the premises and set fire to the head nurse’s vehicle. The city is filled with panic. People are holed up in their homes, nothing is going on. The shops and stores are closed. It’s practically a ghost town.”
Burkina Faso has allied with other nations in the region, including Niger, Chad, and Mali, as it works to fight Islamist extremists operating in the ｃountry. France, once a colonial power in the region, is supporting these efforts with more than 4,000 troops. The US also has a ｃounterterrorism presence in the area.]
The population of the ｃountry is 61.5 percent Muslim, 23.3 percent Roman Catholic and 6.5 percent Protestant, according to the 2010 census.
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Article Source: https://www.studentnewsdaily.com/world-current-events/world-2-islamic-jihadists-attack-3rd-church-in-a-month-in-burkina-faso-murdering-six/
Vocabulary:
1. landlocked / adjective : shut in completely, or almost completely, by land:
2. assailant / noun : a person who attacks
3. attribute / verb : to regard as resulting from a specified cause; consider as caused by something indicated (usuallyfollowed by to):
4. congregation / noun : an assembly of persons brought together for common religious worship.
5. colonial / adjective : of, concerning, or pertaining to a colony or colonies:
Questions:
1. list the who, what, where and when of the news item
2. What did the jihadists do after murdering the Christians?
3. What other Islamic terrorist attacks have taken place over the past month on Christians in churches in Burkina Faso?
4. What has the attack on the church in Dablo done to the town?
5. There was almost no reporting on the Islamist terrorist attacks on Christians attending church in the small African ｃountry of Burkina Faso – or on any of the multiple ongoing attacks on Christians around the world.
