Entire Burkina Faso Cabinet and PM Resign From Office

With no reason given yet, Paul Kaba Thieba, Burkina Faso's prime minister and the entire cabinet of ministers have resigned from office after pressure due to a rising wave of violence and kidnappings in the West African country.

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The decision was made public by President Roch Marc Christian Kabore in a televised statement to the nation. President Kabore accepted the resignations according to the statement and it is expected that he will form a new government soon.

Attacks by Islamist militants have surged in the previously peaceful West African country in recent months. A state of emergency has been in effect since Dec. 31 in several northern provinces near the borders with Mali and Niger.

A Canadian man was kidnapped in an area of Burkina Faso that the government has warned is under growing threat from jihadist attacks, the African country's top security official said on Wednesday. A dozen gunmen abducted the man around 19:45 (local time) on Tuesday at a mining site owned by Vancouver-based Progress Minerals near northern Burkina Faso's border with Niger, Security Minister Clement Sawadogo said. On Thursday, Kirk Woodman was found dead.

Canadian 34-year-old Edith Blais, and her Italian partner 30-year-old Luca Tacchetto went missing in mid-December, "we have alerted our entire security presence to find these people," Sawadogo said.

Attacks allegedly by Islamist militants have surged in the country in recent months and Burkina Faso declared a state of emergency in several northern provinces that has been in effect since Dec. 31.

Security has deteriorated in the West African country in the past three years. Jihadists with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State, many based in neighboring Mali, have sought to increase their influence across the poorly policed scrublands of the Sahel region just south of the Sahara Desert in West Africa, Reuters reported.