A terrorist group stormed a mosque in Burkina Faso on Wednesday and murdered nine worshippers in an unprovoked and cold-blooded attack.
According to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the local Muslim Ahmadis were peacefully gathered in their mosque in Mahdi Abad, a village built by the Community in 2008 near the northern town of Dori, for evening prayers when terrorists stormed the mosque and began harassing worshippers.
They separated nine elderly men – including the imam of the mosque – from the others, forced them out of the mosque and then brutally executed them.
Following the attack, the terrorists threatened all the other worshippers, including children, that they would also be killed if they returned inside the mosque.
A spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community commented:
“Our Community around the world is a real family. We are devastated by this brutal murder of our brothers and mourn with their loved ones. We pray that God will wrap the martyrs in His mercy.
“We also pray for the security of Burkina Faso and for the government to fulfil its duty to protect all Burkinabe people – including the Muslim Ahmadis – and for the perpetrators of this evil crime to be brought to justice,” he said.
Ahmadi Muslims are persecuted because of their faith by both state and non-state actors in many Muslim-majority countries, including Pakistan. In 2010, dozens of Ahmadi Muslims were killed by terrorists who simultaneously attacked two mosques in the city of Lahore.
On 13 July 2021, United Nations human rights experts expressed deep concern about the lack of attention to the serious human rights violations perpetrated against Ahmadis around the world, and called on countries to redouble their efforts to end the ongoing persecution of Ahmadis.
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