" Around 20 dead in Burkina Faso as jihadist violence spreads across region",  6 Ocotber 2019 

Deadly assault on gold mine follows spate of violence in region south of Sahara blamed on Islamist insurgencyAround 20 people have been killed in an attack on a gold mining site in northern Burkina Faso, security sources said, the latest in a spate of violence blamed on a jihadist insurgency across the region. The attack on Friday took place in Soum province not far from where alleged jihadists blew up a bridge linking two northern towns in mid-September. “Armed individuals attacked the gold mining site at Dolmane ... leaving around 20 dead, mainly gold miners,” one security source said. Another security source confirmed the attack, adding that a number of people had been injured... 

The west African nation has become part of a four-and-a-half year jihadist insurgency in the Sahel region, which covers the region south of the Sahara from the Atlantic coast across to the horn of Africa. Many of the attacks have been attributed to groups affiliated with al-Qaida, and others to the so-called Islamic State group. More than 585 people have been killed since early 2015...in an insurgency affecting Nigeria, Chad, Niger and other nations such as Mali, where nearly 40 people were killed in an attack last week.

According to the US think-tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the number of radical Islamist-linked attacks in the Sahel has doubled each year since 2016. Last year, the tally was 465 – more than one a day.