Witnesses were quoted as saying that three gunmen opened fire on customers seated outside a restaurant.

Security forces killed three attackers, but some people are still trapped in the building, Communication Minister Remis Dandjinou says.

A jihadist attack on a cafe nearby left 30 people dead in January last year.

There are fears that the attack is the work of one of the affiliates of al-Qaeda that are active in the Sahel region, the BBC’s Alex Duval Smith reports.

Mr Dandjinou said it was unclear how many assailants had been involved.

“They are confined to one part of the building they attacked. Security and elite forces are conducting an operation,” he said on television.

The shooting began shortly after 21:00 (21:00 GMT) on Sunday on Ouagadougou’s busy Kwame Nkrumah Avenue.

The Aziz Istanbul Restaurant appears to have been at the centre of the shooting.

“The attack claimed 17 victims, their nationalities are yet to be confirmed, and eight injured,” said a government statement quoted by the AFP news agency.

A hospital in the city said that one of those killed was Turkish.

The attack is similar to one in January 2016, when gunmen targeted the Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino restaurant, only 200m further along Kwame Nkrumah Avenue from the scene of the latest attack.

Over 170 people were taken hostage and 30 were killed. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for that attack.

Burkina Faso is part of the Sahel region, which includes Mali where Islamist groups have been active since 2012.

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Source: BBC

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Mr Gustafsson, 42, is being flown back to Sweden from Africa, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström said in a statement on Monday.

He was seized by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) along with two other men, one of whom was freed in a dawn raid in 2015.

Ms Wallström said Mr Gustafsson was “in good spirits”, local media report.

“It is with great pleasure that I can announce that Johan Gustafsson has been released,” Ms Wallström added.
She said that the Swede’s release was thanks to “extensive efforts” and co-operation between the Swedish foreign ministry, police and “foreign authorities”.

Ms Wallström said she had spoken with Mr Gustafsson, who she described as being “happy” and “overwhelmed” by Monday’s events.

“I can not say more at the current time,” she added.

Sweden’s former Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said that Mr Gustafsson’s kidnapping weighed heavily on his mind during his time in the role, which ended in 2014.

He tweeted on Monday: “Extremely gratifying that Johan Gustafsson is free. No single case concerned me more as foreign minister.”

Mr Gustafsson was kidnapped along with South African Stephen Malcolm and Dutchman Sjaak Rijke.

Mr Rijke was freed by French special forces in April 2015 after he was discovered by chance in a dawn raid in northern Mali.

AQIM took a number of Western hostages before the French military deployed its forces in January 2013.

In a separate incident in December 2014, French hostage Serge Lazarevic was freed after a prisoner swap.

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Source: BBC

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