At least four people have been killed and one declared missing after armed men attacked a village in northeastern Ivory Coast near the border with Burkina Faso, the country’s military confirmed on Tuesday.
The overnight raid occurred in Difita, a small farming community just two kilometres from the Burkinabe border.
The attackers stormed the village between Sunday night and early Monday, killing four farmers, injuring a woman who suffered severe burns, and abducting one resident, according to the army’s chief of staff, General Lassina Doumbia.
Several huts were torched during the assault, and livestock was stolen before the assailants fled.
The Ivorian military said both air and ground forces were immediately deployed to the area, but the attackers had already escaped before troops arrived. Security has since been reinforced in villages along the border.
Although authorities have not officially blamed any group, security analysts say the proximity to Burkina Faso where jihadist militants linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS operate freely makes the region highly vulnerable to cross-border incursions.
History of Attacks
This marks Ivory Coast’s first deadly assault since 2021. Previous attacks include a June 2020 ambush in Kafolo, northern Ivory Coast, which left 14 soldiers dead, and a March 2021 incident in which two soldiers were killed.
Earlier this month, Defence Minister Téné Birahima Ouattara admitted that the country continues to face “many challenges” in terms of security.
He, however, insisted that the situation remained “worrying but under control.
Relations between Ivory Coast and its northern neighbour, junta-led Burkina Faso, have deteriorated in recent years, with both countries trading accusations of attempted destabilisation.
Security experts warn that rising instability across the Sahel region could increasingly spill into Ivory Coast, which has so far been relatively shielded from large-scale jihadist violence.
