On 15 January 2016, gunmen armed with heavy weapons attacked the Cappuccino restaurant and the Splendid Hotel in the heart of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

In Burkina Faso, the 2014 Burkinabé uprising ousted President Blaise Compaoré, while the consequent 2015 Burkinabe coup d'état, in relation to the electoral process, was eventually put down under pressure from the African Union.

[13] Earlier in the day, at about 14:00 local time, approximately 20 "heavily-armed unidentified individuals" attacked gendarmerie in the village of Tin Abao, near the border with Mali, according to the army.

[6] The Security Ministry's Spokeswoman Abi Ouattara also announced that an Austrian couple were kidnapped in the night in northern Burkina Faso near the border with Mali in the Baraboulé area's[8] village of Djibo.

[3] On 15 January 2016 at 19:30,[15] according to Communications Minister Remi Dandjinou, six or seven[3] turbaned gunmen,[15] reportedly arrived in four-wheel drive cars and burnt ten vehicles.

[10] They attacked the Cappuccino restaurant, which had about 100 guests, according to RTB,[14] and then took hostages[16] at the 147-room[17] four-star[8] Splendid Hotel in the heart of Ouagadougou on Avenue Kwame Nkrumah.

[14] As Ouagadougou Airport is about 1.5 kilometres (1 mi) from the attack site, Air France and Turkish Airlines flights were diverted to Niamey, Niger.

According to the head of the city's main hospital there were 20 confirmed deaths, while an unnamed Cappuccino staff member said several people had been killed at the restaurant.

[12][21] Other survivors, including a Slovenian social anthropologist and a French architect, also reported witnessing white people being "singled out" and double tapped by the attackers.

[15] An unnamed U.S. Defence Department official said that France had requested its intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance support in the city and that at least one military member in the country was giving "advice and assistance" to French forces at the hotel.

[8] It also quoted a statement from the group as reading: "[The] mujahideen brothers...broke into a restaurant of one of the biggest hotels in the capital of Burkina Faso, and are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls added on Twitter: "By striking Burkina Faso, terrorists have again struck the world.

#JeSuisOuaga"[8] President of the National Assembly of Ivory Coast Guillaume Soro expressed his "compassion and solidarity" to the "government and people.

[citation needed] In announcing the deaths of his fellow citizens, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned "these senseless acts of violence on innocent civilians.

"[14] Regional neighbor Algeria's Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra also condemned the attacks and expressed its solidarity with the families of the victims, the government and the Burkinabé people.

[48] Ghana's President John Mahama appointed his former chief of staff, Prosper Douglas Bani, as interior minister to reinforce domestic security following the attacks.