On 15 January 2016, gunmen armed with heavy weapons attacked the Cappuccino restaurant and the Splendid Hotel in the heart of

Ouagadougou Ouagadougou ( , , ) is the capital and largest city of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural, and economic centre of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 2,415,266 in 2019. The city's n ...

, the capital of

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana t ...

. The number of fatalities reached 30, while at least 56 were wounded; a total of 176 hostages were released after a government counter-attack into the next morning as the siege ended. Three perpetrators were also killed. The nearby YIBI hotel was then under siege, where another attacker was killed. Notably, former Swiss MPs Jean-Noël Rey and Georgie Lamon were killed. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb ( ar-at, تنظيم القاعدة في بلاد المغرب الإسلامي, Tanẓīm al-Qā'idah fī Bilād al-Maghrib al-Islāmī), or AQIM, is an Islamist militant organization (of al-Qaeda) that aims to o ...

(AQIM) and Al-Mourabitoun.

Background

Following the

Libyan Civil War Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...

, neighbouring Mali has been wracked by instability, including Islamist attacks, in the

Northern Mali conflict {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Mali War , partof = the Islamist insurgency in the Sahel and the War on terror , image = MaliWar.svg , image_size = 380 , caption = Military situation ...

. Neighbouring countries have also been experiencing a

Boko Haram Boko Haram, officially known as ''Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād'' ( ar, جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد, lit=Group of the People of Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad), is an Islamic terrorist organization ...

insurgency. More locally, the

2014 Burkinabé uprising The 2014 Burkina Faso uprising was a series of demonstrations and riots in Burkina Faso in October 2014 that quickly spread to multiple cities. They began in response to attempts at changing the constitution to allow President Blaise Compaoré ...

ousted President Blaise Compaoré, while the consequent 2015 Burkinabe coup d'état, in relation to the electoral process, was eventually put down under pressure from the

African Union The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the Africa ...

. The recently concluded November 2015 general election then resulted in

Roch Marc Christian Kaboré Roch Marc Christian Kaboré (; born 25 April 1957) is a Burkinabé banker and politician who served as the President of Burkina Faso from 2015 until he was deposed in 2022. He was the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso between 1994 and 1996 and Pr ...

becoming president of Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is part of the G5 Sahel countries formed to counter insurgent attacks. The Splendid Hotel was sometimes used by French troops who are part of the Chad-based

Operation Barkhane Operation Barkhane was an anti-insurgent operation that started on 1 August 2014 and formally ended on 9 November 2022. It was led by the French military against Islamist groups in Africa's Sahel region. The United States has approximately 75 military personnel in the country, including 15 assigned to the embassy and about 60 who provide "security assistance" – training, advising and assisting. Earlier in the day, at about 14:00 local time, approximately 20 "heavily-armed unidentified individuals" attacked gendarmes in the village of Tin Abao, near the border with Mali, according to the army. The Security Ministry's Spokeswoman Abi Ouattara also announced that an Austrian couple were kidnapped in the night in northern Burkina Faso near the border with Mali in the Baraboulé area's village of Djibo. Austrian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Thomas Schnoell added that more information was not known but they were "looking into the matter as quickly as possible." However, the couple were later said to be Australian.

Attacks and sieges

Cappuccino and Splendid Hotel

On 15 January 2016 at 19:30, according to Communications Minister Remi Dandjinou, six or seven turbaned gunmen, reportedly arrived in

four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer ca ...

cars and burnt ten vehicles. They attacked the ''Cappuccino'' restaurant, which had about 100 guests, according to '' RTB'', and then took hostages at the 147-room four-star Splendid Hotel in the heart of

on Avenue Kwame Nkrumah. Both places are frequented by businessmen and foreigners. A dinner of the

ASECNA The Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (''L'Agence pour la Sécurité de la Navigation aérienne en Afrique et à Madagascar'', ASECNA) is an air traffic control agency based in Dakar, Senegal. It manages 16.1 million sq ...

, which was attended by 200 people, was taking place in the hotel. Some of the perpetrators arrived at the hotel during the day and mingled with guests, while others joined them after nightfall. As

Ouagadougou Airport Ouagadougou Airport , officially Thomas Sankara International Airport Ouagadougou, is an international airport in the center of the capital city of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. It was built in the 1960s, and it is approximately southeast of t ...

is about from the attack site,

Air France Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global a ...

and

Turkish Airlines Turkish Airlines ( Turkish: ''Türk Hava Yolları'') is the national flag carrier airline of Turkey. , it operates scheduled services to 340 destinations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, making it the largest mainline carrier in the ...

flights were diverted to

Niamey Niamey () is the capital and largest city of Niger. Niamey lies on the Niger River, primarily situated on the east bank. Niamey's population was counted as 1,026,848 as of the 2012 census. As of 2017, population projections show the capital dis ...

, Niger. Foreign Minister

Alpha Barry Alpha Barry (born 1 January 1970) is a Burkinabé politician and journalist. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2021. Biography Barry is born on 1 January 1970 in Ivory Coast. His birth name is Alpha Mamadou Barry. He has ...

said: "We know that there are victims and there are hostages. Currently the area is blocked by security forces waiting for an assault to free the hostages." According to the head of the city's main hospital there were 20 confirmed deaths, while an unnamed Cappuccino staff member said several people had been killed at the restaurant. At least 20 people were wounded. Robert Sangare, director of Ouagadougou's university hospital centre, said that one European woman being treated at the hospital had said that the perpetrators appeared to target white people. Other survivors, including a Slovenian social anthropologist and a French architect, also reported witnessing white people being "singled out" and double tapped by the attackers. About 10 ambulances were used to ferry the wounded to the hospital through the night.

Counter-attack

At 01:00 the next day, the hall was set on fire as commandos tried to free an unknown number of hostages, using explosives to enter the building. Two groups of security forces entered the main lobby five hours after the siege began, as gunfire was reported. ''RTB'' reported intense gunfire for 40 minutes in the direction of the hotel. It further noted that about 33 hostages had been freed by security forces, including Minister of Public Services, Labour and Social Security Clément Sawadogo, according to Dandjinou. Gunfire reportedly subsided after an hour of the counter-attack, while bodies were seen outside the hotel. The Splendid Hotel siege ended in the morning with the release of 176 hostages, according to Compoare, almost half of whom were injured in the process. A group of U.S. and French soldiers came to the site, while a

curfew A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...

was instated from 23:00 to 06:00. An unnamed U.S. Defence Department official said that France had requested its intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance support in the city and that at least one military member in the country was giving "advice and assistance" to French forces at the hotel. Dozens of the French forces came in from neighbouring Mali. French medical teams were sent to provide support, while forensic officers were also sent to the city.

YIBI hotel

Following the end of the siege at the Splendid Hotel, the Yibi hotel, located next to Cappuccino, was under attack, according to Interior Minister Simon Compaoré. It followed him saying that nearby hotels were being checked to make sure attackers were not hiding there. At about 07:30, government forces entered the hotel on foot, while sharp shooters were reportedly on the roofs of nearby buildings. '' Radio Omega'' reported that a fourth attacker had been killed after seeking refuge at the hotel.

Casualties

The gunmen were initially reported to have killed 20 people, but this number was later revised upward to a total of 30 people with one death in the second hotel; at least 56 other people were injured. Three militants were also killed at the first hotel and one in the second hotel. Ten bodies were found at the Cappuccino across the street from the hotel by firefighters. One of the hostages was an Indian citizen, while at least one of the other wounded was French and another was from the U.S. Persons of 18 nationalities were initially reported as being among the dead. These included: eight locals from Burkina Faso; six Canadians, four of whom were members of the same family from

Lac-Beauport, Quebec Lac-Beauport is a town in the Capitale-Nationale region of Quebec, Canada, located on the eponymous Lake Beauport. It has a population of about 8,200 people, and lies about 25 kilometres north from downtown Quebec City. Lac-Beauport is the hom ...

, another family friend and a member of their visiting party; four Ukrainians of the same family; two each from Switzerland and France; and one each from Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Libya and the United States, the latter was working for the Christian group Sheltering Wings. A dual French-Moroccan victim, who was shot multiple times, died in an Ouagadougou hospital three days later. She was Leila Alaoui, a photographer on assignment for

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and s ...

. The two Swiss dead were Georgie Lamon, a former cantonal member of parliament, and Jean-Noël Rey, a former Swiss member of parliament and head of the Swiss post and telecommunications service. Both had been visiting a school created by an association to which they belonged.

Responsibility

claimed responsibility for the attack. ''Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)'' is an Islamist militant organization whose ultimate goal is to overthrow the Algerian government and create an Islamic State in its place. SITE Intelligence Group translated a document that outlined the reason for the attack "revenge against France and the disbelieving West" and that the militants were part of the Mali-based Al-Murabitoun group. It also quoted a statement from the group as reading: " he

mujahideen ''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term t ...

brothers...broke into a restaurant of one of the biggest hotels in the capital of Burkina Faso, and are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion." The group also "asserted the fall of many dead Crusaders." Eyewitnesses said the perpetrators were "light-skinned" and spoke a language not native to the country. Later, two of the attackers were found to be black and one Arab. Of the initially reported six gunmen, at least two of the four perpetrators found were women, according to an announcement by Kaboré. Compoare added that the bodies of three "very young" attackers were found and that they were no older than 26 years old. It was reported on 22 January that three of the six attackers were still on the run.

Reactions

;Domestic President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré presided over an emergency cabinet meeting and then, along with Prime Minister Paul Kaba Thieba arrived at the attack scene at about lunchtime. Kaboré said it was "a barbaric attack that we must fight."

National mourning A national day of mourning is a day or days marked by mourning and memorial activities observed among the majority of a country's populace. They are designated by the national government. Such days include those marking the death or funeral of ...

is to be observed for 72 hours. ;International The French embassy announced that a "terrorist attack" was underway and urged its citizens to avoid the area. It added that it had no idea if there were any French citizens inside the hotel. The U.S. embassy issued a statement on ''

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

'' indicating that while it was aware of the situation, there was no indication of any citizens inside the hotel and also urged its citizens to avoid the downtown area of Ouagadougou. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued a similar advisory. French President

François Hollande François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (France), First Secretary of the Socialist P ...

issued a statement early in the morning of 16 January that read: "The President of the Republic expresses his total support for President Kaboré and for the people of Burkina Faso in the face of this odious and cowardly attack which has struck Ouagadougou." Prime Minister Manuel Valls added on ''Twitter'': "By striking Burkina Faso, terrorists have again struck the world. Together we will respond and we will overcome. #JeSuisOuaga" President of the National Assembly of Ivory Coast Guillaume Soro expressed his "compassion and solidarity" to the "government and people." Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attacks. In announcing the deaths of his fellow citizens, Canadian Prime Minister

Justin Trudeau Justin Pierre James Trudeau ( , ; born December 25, 1971) is a Canadian politician who is the 23rd and current prime minister of Canada. He has served as the prime minister of Canada since 2015 and as the leader of the Liberal Party since ...

condemned "these senseless acts of violence on innocent civilians." Reporting that Ukrainians were killed, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin stated that he was "shocked by the attack" that was "a tragedy for all of us..." U.S. State Department Spokesman John Kirby later offered condolences on the death of his fellow citizen and added that his family "are with all those affected by this brutality." The U.S. embassy called it a "senseless assault on innocent people." Regional neighbor Algeria's Foreign Minister

Ramtane Lamamra Ramtane Lamamra ( ar, رمطان لعمامرة; born 15 June 1952) is an Algerian diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria. He was the African Union's Commissioner for Peace and Security from 2008 to 2013 and Minister of Foreign Aff ...

also condemned the attacks and expressed its solidarity with the families of the victims, the government and the Burkinabé people. Ghana's President

John Mahama John Dramani Mahama (; born 29 November 1958) is a Ghanaian politician who served as President of Ghana from 24 July 2012 to 7 January 2017. He previously served as Vice President of Ghana from January 2009 to July 2012, and took office as pres ...

appointed his former chief of staff,

Prosper Douglas Bani Prosper Douglas Kwaku Bani is a Ghanaian international aid and development manager and politician who is a former Chief of staff of Ghana and a former Minister for Interior. He is a senior manager and specialist in international peace-building and ...

, as interior minister to reinforce domestic security following the attacks.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ouagadougou attacks 21st century in Ouagadougou Attacks on hotels in Africa Attacks on tourists Hostage taking Islamic terrorist incidents in 2016 Islamic terrorism in Burkina Faso January 2016 crimes in Africa January 2016 events in Africa Jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso Mass murder in 2016 Mass shootings in Africa Terrorist incidents attributed to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Terrorist incidents in Burkina Faso in 2016 2016 murders in Burkina Faso