Attacks have worsened this year, making the country the epicentre of a violent movement that has also engulfed poverty-stricken Mali and Niger, killing thousands and forcing millions from their homes.

The mass kidnapping is a first in the insurgency that spread to Burkina Faso from neighbouring Mali in 2015 despite costly international military efforts to contain it.

Locals say they have started exhuming the bodies and burying them after transporting them.