Burkina Faso Splendid Hotel Attack Leaves at Least 23 People Dead

Twenty three people of 18 different nationalities are now known to have been killed after Islamist militants attacked Splendid Hotel in Burkina Faso.

Al-Qaeda militants attacked the luxury hotel in Ouagadougou as well as a cafe and another hotel nearby.

Four attackers – two of them reportedly women – died in the assaults.

The siege at the Splendid hotel was declared over after a joint operation by local and French security forces.

The Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) militant group has said it carried out the attack, which began on January 15.

Bukinabe President Roch Kabore, who arrived at the scene on January 16 amid tight security, announced the death toll and the liberation of at least 150 hostages.

The French Ambassador, Gilles Thibault, gave a higher death toll of 27 and denied any women were among the militants killed at the hotel.

In another development, an Austrian doctor and his wife were kidnapped on January 15 in northern Burkina Faso near the border with Mali, Burkinabe officials said. AQIM said it kidnapped the couple.

In November, an AQIM attack on a hotel in Bamako, the capital of neighboring Mali, left 19 people dead.

Militants attacked the Splendid and the nearby Cappuccino cafe on Friday evening, setting off several explosions. Both places are popular with UN staff and foreigners.

Survivors described how the militants went from person to person, touching their bodies to see if they moved.

Burkina Faso’s Interior Minister Simon Compaore said 10 bodies had been found on the cafe terrace alone. He added that at least 33 hostages had been injured.

As the end of the siege at the Splendid was being announced, reports came in that militants had taken up position at the Yibi hotel, a short distance away. One attacker was killed at the Yibi, officials said later.

Simon Compaore said two black Africans and an Arab were among the militants killed.