Ouagadougou (Agenzia Fides) - "The news is totally false". Thus, in a conversation with Agenzia Fides, His Exc. Mgr. Laurent Dabiré, Bishop of Dori, decisively denies the news released by some press services of the discovery of the body of Fr. Joël Yougbaré, parish priest of Djibo, the priest from Burkina Faso who disappeared in the north of the Country on Sunday 17 March (see Fides, 20/03/2019).
"This is news spread on social media and then taken up by some media", said Mgr. Dabiré. "A place was indicated where Fr. Joel's hanged body apparently was found. We did some research in the place indicated but found nothing. We do not know who released this news and why".
Attacks against Christian communities are multiplying in Burkina Faso. "Yesterday, Sunday, April 28, at the end of the celebration in Silgadji, in the province of Soum, a Protestant pastor was assassinated along with five faithful", said Mgr. Dabiré. The Bishop also recalls that on Friday 5 April in a village in the diocese, during the celebration of the Via Crucis, some armed men had entered the Catholic church and after separating the men from women and children, they killed four faithful who had tried to escape.
"Before leaving, the bandits ransacked the village", reports Mgr. Dabiré.
Furthermore, between Sunday 31 March and Tuesday 2 April, at least 62 people lost their lives near Arbinda, in northern Burkina Faso, on the border with Mali, in a jihadist attack followed by inter-communal clashes. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 29/4/2019)