According to the bishop of the local diocese, armed men kidnapped an 83-year-old American nun in northern Burkina Faso.
Sister Suellen Tennyson was kidnapped and taken to an unknown location by her kidnappers, who vandalised rooms and sabotaged the community vehicle they attempted to take, according to Kaya Bishop Theophile Nare in a statement released on Tuesday.
She was abducted on Monday night in the parish of Yalgo, part of the Kaya diocese, where she had been serving in the Marianites of Holy Cross Catholic community since 2014, according to the statement.
The bishop stated that he was unaware of the identity of Tennyson’s kidnappers.
Armed organisations in Burkina Faso have taken over vast sections of the country, with some having ties to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS). They regularly target the army and civilians. In 2019, a Canadian was found dead in the country after being kidnapped.
In a statement, the US Embassy in Burkina Faso said it was aware of reports of a missing US citizen and that it was “working assiduously with local authorities to corroborate these reports and is monitoring the situation.”
The military administration of Burkina Faso has stated that security is its top concern, and this week unveiled a new strategy to bolster army operations against armed groups.
Yalgo is close to the province of Soum, where almost 70 people were killed in two incidents in November, and it’s not far from Mali, where Human Rights Watch estimates that over 100 civilians have been killed in recent months.
