Sixty-six women and children kidnapped by armed assailants in northern Burkina Faso last week have been freed, national broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTP) said on Friday.
The mass kidnapping was unprecedented in Burkina Faso, which is facing a violent Islamist insurgency that spread from neighbouring Mali in 2015.
Security forces staged a rescue operation and found 27 adult women and 39 babies, children and young girls in the adjacent Centre-North province. Jihadists have occupied territory in the country's arid and mainly rural north, executing hundreds of villagers and displacing thousands more in the process.
Faced with acute food shortages, many villagers have resorted to picking wild fruit, leaves and seeds to feed their families. They say venturing into the bush makes them vulnerable to jihadist attacks.
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