Curfews imposed to help Burkina Faso fight jihadists

Burkina Faso has put the North and parts of the Centre East region under curfew to aid the fight against jihadists, according to official documents seen by AFP on Sunday.

The long-running insurgency in the impoverished Sahel nation has left thousands of civilians, police and soldiers dead and forced more than two million people to flee their homes.

"In the framework of the fight against terrorism, a curfew is established from 22:00 to 05:00 across all the regional territory from Friday March 3 to Friday 31 March," said a note from the secretary general of the governorate for the North, Kouilga Albert Zongo.

The curfews ban the movement overnight of people and the use of two and four-wheeled vehicles.

Zongo said the curfew would help the army in the region bordering Mali, from where the insurgency swept in back in 2015.

A curfew was also set up for March over Koulpelogo province, under an administrative communique from the high commission in the area close to Ghana and Togo, as well as the central-northern Bam region.

In mid-February, an overnight curfew set up in 2019 in the East region was extended for three months to May 21.

Jihadist assaults have increased this year leaving dozens of civilians and members of the security forces dead every week.

The army announced a provisional death toll of 51 in a February 17 ambush in the far north for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

It was the deadliest attack in Burkina since army captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in a coup late last September.

Around 40 percent of the nation's territory lies outside government control.

Anger within the Burkinabe military at failures to roll back the insurgency led to two coups last year.