Another Sunday Church Attack in Burkina Faso Kills Six

This time, terrorists interrupted a Catholic Mass in Dablo, separated out the men and murdered the priest and five worshipers.

For the second time since Easter, a church in northern Burkina Faso has suffered a terrorism attack during Sunday services.

This time, the target was a Catholic church in Dablo, where the priest and five worshipers were killed. This prompted a series of déjà vu headlines among global media outlets as it matches last month’s attack on an Assemblies of God church in Sirgadji, where the pastor and five worshipers were killed.

The assailiants again arrived on motorcycles and interrupted morning Mass. “They started firing as the congregation tried to flee,” said mayor Ousmane Zongo, reported Agence-France Presse.

They “ordered the women and children to clear the scene before executing six men, including the priest,” reported the Burkina Information Agency. They then set fire to the church and nearby buildings.

CT reported last month how the Assemblies of God was reeling from the “new turning point in terrorism” in the landocked West African nation.

“It’s not only the church of Sirgadji that has been attacked; all the values of tolerance, forgiveness, and love that have always led our country have been hurt,” said Henri Yé, president of the Federation of Evangelical Churches and Missions in Burkina Faso (FEME), in an April 30 statement. “The freedom of worship consecrated by our fundamental law [the Constitution] has been flouted.”

“In the face of blind hatred, let us ask God to give us the strength to spread love, which makes us the children of God,” stated Yé. “The unity of the body of Christ and of the whole nation must be preserved at all costs.”