As Christians around the world marked the first Sunday of Advent, an attack on a church in the African nation of Burkina Faso left 14 people dead and several others wounded.
The attackers sprayed bullets into the Protestant church before fleeing the town of Hantoukoura on motorbikes, according to The Washington Post.
Around 10 “heavily armed individuals” attacked the church, Agence France-Presse reported, according to Britain’s Telegraph.
AFP quoted an unidentified source as saying the attackers were “executing the faithful including the pastor and children.”
Bishop Justin Kientega of Ouahigouya, the third-largest city in Burkina Faso, said that a “persecution of Christians is underway” in his country, according to Vatican News.
He said the bishops of Burkina Faso have complained about the crisis there for months, “but no one listens. Obviously they prefer to protect their own interests.”
Although no one claimed responsibility for the attack, The New York Times noted in its reporting that the region of the attack, near the border with Niger, has been the site of other attacks by “suspected jihadist groups with [ties to] Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.”
“I offer my deepest condolences to the bereaved families and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded,” Burkina Faso’s president, Roch Marc Kaboré, tweeted Sunday.
The West African nation, located south of the Sahara Desert, is two-thirds Muslim and one-third Christian.
Violence has increased this year, with church attacks having quadrupled in the past two years, leading the United Nations to estimate that 500,000 people have had to flee their homes.
“We looked to escape death. There was no time to take anything. We just left like that,” said Kirakoya Adjaratou, 28, who fled her village of Pissélé after eight men were killed, according to The Times.
“People fleeing the violence report attacks on their villages by extremists who often forcibly recruit male residents at gunpoint, killing those who resist,” the U.N. refugee agency said in a statement last month. “Militants also stole cattle and other possessions.”
Christians have been targeted in the past, including the execution of a Catholic priest as well as separate church attacks that have killed more than 20 people.
This is awful news.
My heart goes out to the victims and their families but prayers won’t help.
What we need is more action to protect Christians all over the globe from persecution and murder. It’s our duty as a civilised Western nation. They need our help.#BurkinaFaso https://t.co/iDO3Zjw5Mp
— Stephie Albig (@stephiebellabb) December 2, 2019
Chalk and cheese levels of reporting on #BurkinaFaso terrorist massacre of Christians compared to #Christchurch terrorist massacre of Muslims; yet both equally barbaric and sadistically evil!
Burkina Faso hardly touched the news 😥#PrayforBurkinaFaso 🙏🏻— Ian Russell (@IanRuss23102169) December 2, 2019
Last month, gunmen ambushed a convoy of workers from a Canadian mine, killing 39 people.
“They are planting seeds of a religious conflict,” Chrysogone Zougmore, president of the Burkinabe Movement for Human and Peoples’ Rights, told The Washington Post. “They want to create hate. They want to create differences between us.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
