BURKINA FASO

June 9, 2021

The death toll from the worst militant attack in Burkina Faso in recent years has risen to 132, after armed assailants laid siege overnight to a village in the jihadist-plagued northeast.

About

  • Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa and is bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and the Ivory Coast to the southwest.

  • It was previously called Republic of Upper Volta.

  • Its capital is Ouagadougou.

  • The country owes its former name of Upper Volta to three rivers which cross it: the Black Volta (or Mouhoun), the White Volta (Nakambé) and the Red Volta (Nazinon).

  • The basin of the Niger River also drains 27% of the country's surface.