Slaughter of the westerners at the Cappuccino cafe

Assault by four al-Qaeda gunmen on cafe and hotel in Burkina Faso leaves at least 25 people dead

AT LEAST 25 people, including 18 westerners were killed when four turbanwearing attackers from al-Qaeda’s west African affiliate launched a bloody assault on a hotel and a café in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso yesterday.

Survivors who escaped from the city centre Hotel Splendid and the nearby Café Cappuccino told how the assailants struck just after 8.30pm as crowds were building on Friday evening, firing into the air and crying “Allahu Akbar” before starting to execute people at point-blank range.

In the Cappuccino café, diners described pretending to be dead for almost an hour as the terrorists picked over them, killing anyone still alive before setting it alight and shooting at those who tried to escape.

“We had to play dead,” said one dazed and tear-streaked local woman interviewed at a nearby hospital, “They shook people by the foot to see if they were alive or not and if they were alive, they shot them.”

Foreign witnesses said the attackers – which according to some accounts included two women terrorists – had singled out westerners for execution as they calmly went about their killing spree.

“They kept coming back. You’d think it was over, then they’d come back and shoot more people. They would come back and see if the white people were moving and then they would shoot them again,” a Slovenian social anthropologist told Reuters.

“My friend had a white dead person on top of her, bleeding onto her. But his body saved her,” said the woman, who asked not to be named.

After crossing the road to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said its affiliate led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, above, carried out the attack. Right: the hotel, and below, a commando the four-star Splendid Hotel, which is popular with Western aid workers and French soldiers stationed locally, they then sprayed more bullets into the building before also torching the building and nearby parked cars. A shoe shine boy and a street hawker were later found among the dead.

One man described the militants as appearing to be little more than “children” who struggled under the weight of their heavy assault rifles.

Burkina Faso’s president suggested two of the attackers were women, though France, which has a military base and thousands of nationals in its former colony, contradicted the claim.

The attacks were condemned around the world, coming weeks after a similar attack in the capital of neighbouring Mali in November where 22 people were killed after Islamist gunmen opened fire on the Radisson Blu hotel,

Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, sent his “deepest condolences” to the families of those killed in the attack. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said British nationals should avoid the area where the attack took place and monitor FCO travel advice.

Another woman said they appeared to be “Tuaregs”, a reference to the Berber pastoralists who mainly live in Niger and northern Mali and whose separatist struggle was hijacked by Islamic extremists in 2012. Responsibility for the assault was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which said it was carried out by al-Mourabitoun, an affiliate run by one of the world’s most wanted men, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, known as the One-Eyed Sheikh of the Sahara.

AQIM said in a statement the Splendid Hotel assault was “revenge against France and the disbelieving West”, designed to “punish the Cross-worshippers for their crimes against our people in Central Africa, Mali and other lands of the Muslims”. Its message, it added, had been “written by the heroes of Islam with their blood and body parts”.

France was the first to condemn what its prime minister, Manuel Valls, described as “an attack on the world”, confirming that at least two French nationals died. Witnesses described “a complete bloodbath” which progressed into yesterday morning as local security forces and French and American commandos sought to take control, hampered by booby traps left by the militants.

Jérémie Bangou, who was at the Cappuccino café, said the attackers were “like children”: “They recoiled every time they fired a shot because the weapons were so heavy for them.” Three terrorists died at the first hotel, Burkinabe authorities said, and a fourth was chased into the nearby Hotel Yibi which became the subject of a second security alert as dawn broke before they too were neutralised.

Simon Compaore, the interior minister, said people from as many 18 countries were among the dead and that a total of 126 people had been freed, including 33 who were wounded.

Gilles Thibault, the French ambassador, put the death toll at 27, a figure that hospital authorities said had risen to 29 last night after two more victims died.