Thirty-nine people were killed in northern Burkina Faso on Saturday, in what the government called a terrorist attack on a village in Soum province.

The weekend attack followed less than a week after militants killed 36 civilians in a neighboring province, part of a surge in violence in the West African country that has killed hundreds, forced more than half a million from their homes and made much of the north ungovernable over the past two years.

The government did not provide further details on the latest attack in the village of Silgadji, describing it in a statement on Tuesday as “cowardly and barbaric”.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible.