At least 26 people from 18 countries were killed in an attack by jehadi gunmen on a top hotel and a restaurant in the capital of Burkina Faso, before security forces ended the siege on Saturday and killed four assailants. The toll could yet rise, said the security forces.
A total of 126 people were freed, including 33 wounded, from the four-star Splendid hotel, popular with Westerners and UN personnel, after security forces retook the 147-room facility and the Cappuccino restaurant nearby in the early hours this morning, Interior Minister Simon Compaore said.
The jehadis’ assault had been completely crushed by midday on Saturday, a security source said. Four jehadis, including two women, were killed in the counter-assault.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for the attack saying it was “revenge against France and the disbelieving West”, according to a statement carried by US-based monitoring group SITE.
The attackers were members of the Al-Murabitoun group based in Mali and run by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, SITE said.
Aside from the four jihadists killed, a fifth attacker could be seen rushing into a nearby bar, according to witnesses who managed to escape.
Compaore said earlier that firefighters had seen 10 bodies on the terrace of the restaurant. President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who took office just last month, visited the hotel today but made no immediate comment.
Communication Minister Remis Dandjinou said the counter-assault was carried out by Burkinabe troops with the support of French special forces. He also said that among those who escaped unharmed was labour Minister Clement Sawadogo.
The attack comes less than two months after a jehadi siege at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in the Malian capital Bamako left 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners — an attack claimed by the same al-Qaeda affiliate behind the Ouagadougou assault.
The head of the city’s main hospital said prior to the start of the counter-assault that 20 people had been killed
and that there were “more white people than black” among the dead.
A French source meanwhile put the death toll at 27 dead. An AFP reporter at one point saw three men clad in turbans firing at the scene on Avenue Kwame Nkrumah, one of Ouagadougou’s main thoroughfares. 0