Locals in Kossi province, close to the border with Mali, told the French news agency that armed men on motorbikes stormed the village of Sanakadougou early on Friday.

Animals and goods were looted.

It is thought the assailants were members of the Islamist insurgency that has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Burkina Faso and in neighbouring Mali and Niger.

The military regimes in Burkina Faso and Mali have expelled the French troops who had been unsuccessfully fighting the Islamists and have invited Russian mercenaries in their stead.