Fourteen members of a volunteer militia and four soldiers died on Monday in Sawenga in central-eastern Burkina, a source said, while another source said a policeman and two civilians were killed on Monday night in Yendere, near the country's southwestern border with Ivory Coast.
On May 30, "Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyelem de Tambela told parliament "We will never negotiate, either over Burkina Faso's territorial integrity or its sovereignty," adding that the government aimed to double the number of volunteers for the VDP civil defense militia to 100,000.
"The only negotiations that matter with these armed bandits are those taking place on the battlefield," de Tambela told the Transitional Legislative Assembly.
Burkina Faso has had rising violence from Islamist radicals, though it has denied engaging the Russian mercenaryt Wagner Group to bolster its own forces.