Twelve civilians were killed on Thursday during a militant attack in the north of Burkina Faso, which has been battling a wave of extremist violence, officials said on Friday.
The West African country declared a state of emergency in several provinces at the end of last year and on Thursday replaced its army chief as it struggled to stop a spate of such attacks.
In the latest violence, gunmen attacked a village market in broad daylight, the security ministry said on Friday.
“Around 30 armed individuals perpetrated … a terrorist attack in the village of Gasseliki,” it said, giving a toll of 12 dead and two wounded.
“A barn, a cart and six shops were also set alight,” it said.
A local source told AFP that the attackers “ransacked stores and opened fire on people who had gathered for the weekly market”.
Militant attacks began in northern Burkina Faso in 2015 but spread to the east, near the border with Togo and Benin.
The country is part of the vast sub-Sahara region and one of the poorest states in the world.
The region turned into a hotbed of violent extremism and lawlessness after chaos engulfed Libya in 2011, which was followed by an extremist insurgency in northern Mali and the rise of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.
Most attacks in Burkina Faso have been attributed to the militant group Ansarul Islam, which emerged near the Mali border in December 2016, and to the JNIM (the Group to Support Islam and Muslims), which has sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Ansarul Islam emerged as violence spilt over from Mali, where extremists seized key Sahara towns in 2012 before being ousted by French troops.
Smaller groups are also active, with the overall number of fighters estimated to be in the hundreds, according to security sources.
The groups are believed to be responsible for more than 270 deaths since 2015. The capital Ouagadougou has been hit three times and almost 60 people have died there.
The militants extend their hold gradually, forcing government workers and others who oppose them to flee. The violence has so far displaced some 40,000 people.
