OUAGADOUGOU (OSV News): Father Jacques Yaro Zerbo, was killed on January 2 by unidentified armed men in Burkina Faso. Bishop Prosper Bonaventure Ky of the Diocese of Dédougou, called it “cold-blood murder.”
A funeral Mass for the 567-year-old Father Zerbo was celebrated on January 5 in the Cathedral of St. Anne in Dédougou, and the Mali-born priest, was laid to rest on January 5 at a Catholic cemetery in Tionkuy, 241 kilometres west of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
The priest was on his way to Tona to accomplish a task for the bishop when he was intercepted by unidentified armed men in the village of Soro in Gassan township found in the northwestern region of Boucle du Mouhon—one of Burkina Faso’s 13 administrative regions and a flashpoint of jihadist extremism.
After killing Father Zerbo, the killers escaped with his car, leaving his lifeless body by the roadside.
Bishop Ky expressed “profound sorrow” at the murder of the priest and hoped he would find peace in the Lord.
The recent killing added to a long list of persecution of Christians and other civilians and underscored the continued spread of terrorism in Burkina Faso and across the Sahel region.
In April 2019, gunmen swooped into a church in the Diocese of Dori, in northeastern Burkina Faso, during Mass and killed four worshippers. In March of the same year, Father Joël Yougbaré of Djibo, also of the Diocese of Dori, was kidnapped by gunmen. He has not been seen since.
On 12 May 2019, a priest and five other Christians were killed when gunmen attacked worshippers attending Mass at a church in Dablo in northern Burkina Faso. Senior UN officials, including secretary general, Antonio Guterres, voiced their outrage at the time.
On 21 January 2022, Father Rodrigue Sanon was found dead in a forest in the southwest of the country, a region of jihadist rule.
According to the Open Doors, a watchdog organisation, around a quarter of the people in Burkina Faso are Christians—just over five million out of a population of 21.5 million.
Open Doors said that Christian believers who have converted from Islam face the most persecution. Family and community members often reject them and try to force them to renounce their Christian faith. Many are afraid to express their faith in public because of such threats.
For years Christians and Muslims lived in relative harmony in Burkina Faso, but this changed in 2015 when jihadists’ attacks began.
