The President, Muhammadu Buhari , on Monday, said those who killed several travellers, including 16 Nigerians, in Burkina Faso would be “appropriately sanctioned.”
This was as he said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Nigerian Embassy in Burkina Faso, was engaging with the Burkinabe authorities to ensure that the soldiers who allegedly shot and killed the Muslim pilgrims were prosecuted.
Buhari revealed this in a statement on Monday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, titled ‘President Buhari calls killing of Nigerians in Burkina Faso unwelcome.’
At a news conference on Sunday in Abuja, the Jam’iyyatu Ansariddeen Attijaniyya of Nigeria revealed that 16 of its members were shot dead by the Burkinabe soldiers on patrol.
They were reportedly on their way to the home country of their leader, Sheikhul-Islam Ibrahim Niasse, in Senegal when they met their untimely death.
The national secretary of the Islamic group, Sayyidi Yahaya, said the Ansaruddeen members were “randomly selected and cold-bloodedly shot to death in a most horrendous display of bestiality” after being stopped by the Burkinabe soldiers.
Reacting to the incident on Monday, Buhari said he “received the tragic news of the murder of a number Nigerian Muslim pilgrims on their way to Kaolak, Senegal, when the buses conveying them came under gun attack in Burkina Faso.”
The President expressed his condolences and prayed for the safety of other Nigerians stranded there.
Buhari added that the Nigerian Government would make every effort to secure the mortal remains of the deceased and the survivors of the attack.