VietJoy

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO - Fourteen civilians, including many schoolchildren, died Saturday when a roadside bomb blew up their bus in northwestern Burkina Faso, a security source told AFP.

Four people were seriously hurt in the blast in Sourou province near the Mali border, the source added, as children returned to school after holidays.

"The vehicle hit a homemade bomb on the Toeni-Tougan road," a second security source said. "Most of the dead are schoolchildren."

Meanwhile, the army reported an attack against gendarmes at Inata in the north on Friday, saying "a dozen terrorists were neutralized".

Since 2015, increasingly deadly Islamist attacks in Burkina have killed more than 750 people according to an AFP count, and forced 560,000 people from their homes according to UN figures.

The entire Sahel region, especially Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, is fighting jihadist insurgency with help from Western countries, but has not managed to stem the bloodshed.