Gunmen have opened fire on a church in northern Burkina Faso, killing at least six people, officials say.
Sunday’s raid took place in the small northern town of Silgadji near Djibo, the capital of Soum province.
Unidentified armed individuals have attacked the Protestant church in Silgadji, killing four members of the congregation and the main pastor a security source has confirmed.
The attackers reportedly arrived on seven motorbikes at the end of Sunday’s service and killed the pastor, two of his sons and three other worshippers.
It is the first attack on a church since jihadist violence erupted in the West African country in 2016.
Fighters affiliated to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, as well as the local Ansarul Islam, have been active.
Sunday’s attack on the Protestant church happened in the small town of Silgadji near Djibo, the capital of Soum province, at around 12:00 local time (12:00 GMT).
The number of attackers involved or their possible affiliations is not clear.
Islamist groups have been blamed for a number of attacks in the country in recent years, BBC Afrique’s Simon Gongo reports.
On Friday, five teachers were killed in the east of the country in another incident attributed to jihadists, our correspondent adds.
Meanwhile, the fate of a Catholic priest kidnapped a month ago remains unclear.
It was the first attack on a church since jihadist violence erupted in Burkina Faso in 2015.
Former colonial ruler France has deployed some 4,500 troops in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad in a mission codenamed Barkhane to help local forces try to flush out jihadist groups.
Burkina Faso has suffered from increasingly frequent and deadly attacks attributed to a number of jihadist groups, including the Ansarul Islam group, the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
The raids began in 2015 in the north before targetting the capital Ouagadougou and other regions, notably in the the east.
A total of 350 people have been killed since 2015 mainly in hit-and-run raids according to an AFP tally.
The jihadist groups regularly target both Muslim and Christian clerics, mainly in the north.
In February, a Spanish Catholic priest, Father Cesar Fernandez, was killed in a raid attributed to jihadists in Nohao in the centre of the country. He was returning from the adjoining country of Togo when it happened.