Burkina Faso in mourning after double jihadist attacks

Burkina Faso was in mourning Wednesday after jihadists killed 35 civilians, almost all of them women, in double attacks in the north in one of the deadliest assaults in nearly five years of violence in the West African country.

Seven soldiers and 80 jihadists also died in Tuesday's simultaneous attacks on the town of Arbinda and its military base in Soum province, which lasted "several hours" and was of a "rare intensity", the army said.

Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, has seen regular jihadist attacks which have left hundreds dead since the start of 2015 when militant violence began to spread across the Sahel region.

"A large group of terrorists simultaneously attacked the military base and the civilian population in Arbinda," the army chief of staff said in a statement.

"This barbaric attack resulted in the deaths of 35 civilian victims, most of them women," President Roch Marc Christian Kabore added on Twitter, praising the "bravery and commitment" of the defence and security forces.

Government spokesman Remis Dandjinou later said 31 of the civilian victims were women, adding around 20 soldiers and six civilians were wounded. The president has declared 48 hours of national mourning. There was worldwide condemnation of the attack, as well as expressions of support for Burkina Faso.

In his traditional Christmas message at the Vatican in Rome, Pope Francis denounced attacks on Christians in Africa and prayed for victims of conflict, natural disasters and disease on the world's poorest continent.

The pontiff urged "comfort to those who are persecuted for their religious faith, especially missionaries and members of the faithful who have been kidnapped, and to the victims of attacks by extremist groups, particularly in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria."