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Burkina Faso Bans Motorbikes in Region Hit by Jihadist Attacks

A Burkina Faso soldier stands guard at Loumbila base camp in Burkina Faso during Exercise Flintlock, February 12, 2019. Image: US Army/Sgt. 1st Class Caleb Barrieau

Burkina Faso has banned the use of motorbikes in a jihadist-hit northern region where 160 people were killed in a weekend raid, the local governor said Monday.

Suspected jihadists on motorcycles carried out the massacre in the village of Solhan, the deadliest attack in the West African country since an Islamist insurgency spread from neighboring Mali in 2015.

“Use of two-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles is strictly forbidden in part of the Sahel region” from Monday “until further notice”, according to a statement issued by Colonel Salfo Kabore, the regional governor.

The province of Yagha, which includes Solhan, and several other communities in three neighboring provinces are covered by the order, barring exceptional authorizations. An overnight curfew is already in effect in these areas.

The attackers killed civilians, including 20 children, in an attack overnight Friday that focussed on a gold mine near the village, security services said.

The governor also ordered all such mining sites to shut down and all gold-related activity in the Oudalan and Yagha provinces to stop immediately.

Burkina Faso, which shares porous borders with Niger and Mali, has been hit by jihadist attacks for six years, and they have grown in frequency and intensity.

More than 1,400 people in Burkina Faso have died and at least a million have fled their homes.

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