Motorcycle gunmen, suspected to be Islamist militants, killed a pastor and at least four worshippers at a church in Burkina Faso.
A further two Christians are said to be missing following the early afternoon bloodshed on Sunday 28 April in the small northern town of Silgadji.
The attackers later reportedly fled north towards the country’s border with Mali.
A rising tide of Islamic extremism in Mali has produced growing terrorism that now seems to be spilling over into impoverished Burkina Faso, which is more than 50% Muslim, but with a large Christian minority of about 20%.
In February, a Spanish church minister was killed in a raid attributed to Muslim extremists in central Burkina Faso, while on 26 April Islamists were blamed for murdering five teachers and another worker at a school in the east of the nation.
Since 2015, about 350 people have been killed in Burkina Faso in attacks attributed to Islamists.
