Several hundred people demonstrated Thursday in Nouna, a major city in western Burkina Faso, plagued by jihadist violence, to demand more security after the death of six residents on Tuesday, residents told AFP.

“Hundreds of people gathered this (Thursday) morning in front of the gendarmerie detachment of Nouna”, capital of the province of Kossi, in the region of Boucle du Mouhoun, “to demand more security in the city and around,” Mady Combari, one of the protesters, told AFP.

According to the organizers of the demonstration, traffic has become very dangerous on the various axes around Nouna due to the activity of jihadist groups.

“We are witnessing a progressive blockade. For several weeks, armed individuals have been carrying out checks on certain axes of the city. We want these axes to be secure to facilitate our movements,” said Yacouba Koté, another demonstrator.

This demonstration follows “the assassination of six inhabitants”, kidnapped on Tuesday on the Nouna-Djibasso axis and “whose dead bodies were found on Wednesday morning”, he said.

The deputy head of the Gendarmerie Brigade who received the message from the demonstrators assured that their “concerns will be taken into account as soon as possible”.

Western Burkina, bordering Mali, has been particularly bereaved in recent days.

Sunday, at least 13 people were killed by unidentified armed individuals, in Haourèma-Karekuy, a locality located 10 km north of Nouna, according to local sources.

On May 13, 33 civilians were killed in an attack by suspected jihadists in the village of Youlou still in the Boucle du Mouhoun region.

Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that appeared in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and which has spread beyond their borders.

The violence over the past seven years has claimed more than 10,000 lives – civilians and soldiers – according to NGOs, and more than two million displaced people.