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| - Burkina Faso, where two Spanish journalists were killed by "terrorists" in an attack on an anti-poaching patrol, is one of the world's poorest countries. An Irish citizen is also thought to have been killed. The West African country has been in the grip of an intensifying jihadist insurgency since 2015. Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in the vast Sahel region, which stretches along the Sahara's southern rim from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. It is about half as big as France, its former colonial ruler, and shares borders with the Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo and Ghana. Its population of 20.3 million is made up of some 60 different ethnic groups, the largest being the Mossi. Sixty percent of the population is Muslim and nearly a quarter are Christian. Known in colonial times as Upper Volta, the country gained its independence in 1960. Burkina Faso was initially spared the deadly attacks perpetrated by jihadist groups active in the Sahel, which started in Mali in 2012. But with its shared northern border with Mali and Niger, it has seen assaults and kidnappings multiply since 2015. In 2016 the capital Ouagadougou suffered a number of radical Islamist attacks including an assault on the Splendid Hotel and a cafe, which left 30 people dead, around half of them foreigners. The insurgency intensified in 2018 and became intertwined with inter-communal violence that left some 1,100 people dead and more than a million displaced. Last August the grand imam of the northern town of Djibo was killed and in January the body of a kidnapped priest was found in the jihadist-hit southwest. Another priest was killed in 2019, a year after the murder of Spanish Catholic missionary Cesar Fernandez. A popular uprising in 1966 toppled the country's first president, Maurice Yameogo. This was followed by seven military coups. In 1983 young revolutionary officers led by Thomas Sankara took power, renaming the country Burkina Faso, "the land of honest men". Sankara, then only 33, pushed for economic development but ruled with an iron fist. Blaise Compaore came to power in a 1987 coup in which Sankara was killed. But the so-called father of Burkina Faso's revolution remains a cult figure, often called the African Che Guevara. Compaore began holding multi-party elections in 1991, after 11 years of running a military regime. He was re-elected in 1998, 2005 and 2010. A wave of army mutinies swept the country over several months in 2011, alongside public protests over high food prices, unemployment and looting by troops. Street protests in 2014 toppled Compaore as he tried to extend his 27-year rule. Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who had been a part of a Compaore government, was elected president in 2015. Burkina Faso's fragile economy is ill-equipped to face the economic fallout from the pandemic, ranked 182 out of 189 countries on the UN Human Development Index. Famine is a major concern. Last year the number of people in a state of food insecurity nearly tripled to 3.3 million, according to Oxfam. In 2009 gold took over from cotton as the main export. Agriculture is also a vital sector, employing nearly 80 percent of the active population, according to the World Bank. The jihadist insurgency has ravaged the country's once-vibrant tourist industry. Ouagadougou is home to the continent's biggest film and television festival, FESPACO, which takes place every two years. acm-ang-eab-fg/mjs
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