Four people, including three Europeans and a Burkinabe, were missing after an anti-poaching patrol was attacked in eastern Burkina Faso on Monday, security and local sources said.

The group -- composed of soldiers, forest rangers and foreign reporters -- was targeted in the Fada N'Gourma-Pama area, according to a local official, who added "the provisional toll reports three people injured, four missing".

The attack was also confirmed by security sources, with one saying the Westerners included "two Spaniards and an Irishman, all of whom were working on behalf of an NGO protecting the environment".

"According to survivors, two of the foreigners were wounded during the attack. The search is ongoing" to find the four missing people, added the source.

The attackers used two pick-up vehicles and a dozen motorbikes, according to security sources.

Burkina Faso, a poor, landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel, has been battling an Islamist insurgency for years.

The nation has endured regular attacks, sometimes intertwined with community conflicts, since jihadists from neighbouring Mali launched raids in 2015.

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Struggle for Mali's 'masters of the waters'
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Members of Mali's nomadic Bozo ethnic group, who dominate the fish trade on the Niger River, are increasingly settling in towns in the face of insecurity in the Sahel. There are hundreds of ethnic groups in the semi-arid African region, but the Bozo people have traditionally occupied a specific niche. Along with the Somonos, they were long the only people to navigate the Niger where it flows through the Sahel. "We were the masters of the waters," said Ousmane Djebare Djenepo, a Bozo who head ... read more