World Watch Monitor | May 2, 2019
Gunmen who attacked a Protestant church in Burkina Faso on 28 April asked the pastor and five others to convert to Islam before they killed them, World Watch Monitor has learned.
Last Sunday’s violence in the West African country appears to have been the first attack, specifically on a church building, in which people have been killed by Islamist extremists. In February, a Spanish Catholic priest was killed by armed men, believed to be Islamist militants, in the south-east region of Nohao, as he was returning from Togo.
Burkina Faso is long known for its peaceful co-existence among religious communities, unlike neighbouring Mali. But over the past two years, attacks by Islamist militants, military operations, and waves of inter-communal violence have left hundreds dead and 135,000 displaced, triggering an “unprecedented” humanitarian crisis that has caught many by surprise, says New Humanitarian News.