Three European journalists, two Spaniards and an Irishman, were killed in the West African nation of Burkina Faso after their anti-poaching patrol was transferred.
“It is very unfortunate, but the three Westerners were executed by terrorists,” said a senior security source in the West African nation.
He did not specify who was behind Monday’s attack on the group, which included soldiers, rangers and foreign journalists, in the eastern region of Fada N’Gourma-Pama.
At least three people were injured and one Burkinabe citizen was missing. The attackers used two pick-up vehicles and a dozen motorcycles, according to security sources.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez confirmed that two Spaniards were killed and named the two victims. “The worst news is confirmed. All our affection for relatives and friends of David Beriain and Roberto Fraile (de Baracaldo), who were murdered in Burkina Faso,” he tweeted.
He praised “those who, like them, pursue courageous and essential journalism from conflict zones.”
Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told a news conference that the two men “made a documentary about Burkina Faso’s actions to protect national parks, to protect natural resources from poaching and to protect the people living in the natural parks.”
She said Beriain was from Pamplona in northern Spain while Fraile was from northern Basque Country. Beriain was a war reporter who worked for a now defunct Spanish branch of CNN and had founded his own production house specializing in documentaries on illegal activities.
Fraile previously worked for Spain’s CyLTV. According to Spanish media reports, he was injured in Syria in late 2012 while covering the free Syrian army. Both were described as experienced war journalists.
Adriano Moran from Beriain’s production house 93Metros said they had only been in Burkina Faso for a short time. “Both knew that it was difficult terrain and that such things could happen. And the worst happened,” he told Spain’s TVE.
“David was one of the great journalists in the country and the world,” he said. “He had received many awards.” Moran said that Beriain had a satellite phone with him but that he had not been communicated in recent days.
The Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not provide details, saying only that it “has been in contact with the family of the Irish citizen and provides all possible consular support.”
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “the terrorists have once again shown their cowardice and criminal face: the defenders of an obscurantism that destroys all freedom of speech and expression.”
One of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, is struggling with a ruthless uprising of armed extremists who swept in from neighboring Mali in 2015.
Jihadist groups, some affiliated with al-Qaeda and others with the Daesh group, have launched an increasing number of attacks in the country.
Nearly 1,100 people have died and more than one million people have fled their homes.
The Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders, Christophe Deloire, dismissed the attack on “three journalists, two of whom were Spanish.
“This tragedy confirms the great dangers facing journalists in the Sahel region,” he said on Twitter.
Monday’s killing was not the first targeted attack in the country.
A kidnapped priest was found dead in January days after he disappeared in the terrorist-plagued southwest, his body was found in a forest.
And in August last year, the great imam in the northern city of Djibo died three days after gunmen stopped the car he was traveling in and kidnapped him.
In March 2019, a priest was kidnapped in Djibo and in February 2018, a Catholic missionary, Cesar Fernandez, was assassinated in the center of the country.
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