Burkina faso
Burkina Faso goes to the polls in shadow of jihadist threat
President Roch Marc Christian Kabore is expected to win re-election, his supporters talking up his chances of an outright victory in the first round of voting.
The attack took place Wednesday in the country's north, near the border with Mali and Niger, and came ahead of presidential and legislative elections on November 22.
Millions more will vote across the region - in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Nigeria - before the year is out, under the wary eye of defenders of democracy.
More than a 100 such volunteers have died since January.
The quarterly report also found 50 extrajudicial killings in late May by Burkina Faso troops in the village of Boulkessi, and settlements close to the nation's Mali border.
On Wednesday, the continent was approaching a million infections and around 21,000 deaths.
The IED, which exploded as the group's cart was passing late Saturday, also injured four others, they said.
It is only the fifth time in the council's 14-year history that it has agreed to hold an "urgent debate", which is a special debate agreed upon within a regular session of the council.
Ten people were killed when an aid convoy was ambushed in Burkina Faso, the government said on Sunday, bringing to at least 50 the death toll from a string of attacks blamed on jihadists.
Patrick Kabre is contributing to COVID-Live, a series of sessions by musicians broadcast in real time on Facebook to people across Burkina Faso who have been under curfew for months.
The Sahel state of Burkina Faso on Wednesday announced its first death from coronavirus, which is also the first known fatality in sub-Saharan Africa.
Among the people killed was a pastor, after gunmen stormed a church on Sunday.
The attack was launched on Saturday and jihadists were still in the area on Monday, a resident in nearby Bourzanga town told AFP by phone, citing accounts from those who had fled.
The explosion happened in Sourou province near the Mali border as students returned to school after the Christmas holidays, a security source said.
Seven soldiers and 80 jihadists were also killed in the double attack on a military base and Arbinda town in Soum province, the army said.
UN's World Food Programme (WFP) Herve Verhoosel said some 20 million people were living in conflict-affected areas across the region, nit by violent clashes involving a range of armed groups.
The employees wanted the same protections as the expatriate staff who had been flying to the mine in helicopters since three workers were killed in two earlier attacks in August 2018.
One soldier was killed in the military response, which followed an attack on a patrol, an army statement said.
One soldier was killed in the operations, which come less than a month after 37 people were killed in an ambush.