Gunmen abducted some 50 women in Burkina Faso’s northern province of Soum on January 12 and 13, the government has said.
Armed men seized the women as they were picking wild fruit outside the village of Liki, about 15 kilometres (9.32 miles) from the town of Aribinda, and in another district west of the town.
“As soon as their disappearance was announced, efforts were launched to find all of these innocent victims safe and sound,” Sahel regional governor Lieutenant-Colonel Rodolphe Sorgho said in a statement on Monday.
“All means available are being used, in the air and on the ground, to find these women,” a security source told AFP news agency.
“Aircraft are flying over the area to detect any suspect movement.”
According to local officials, the army and its civilian auxiliaries have carried out unsuccessful sweeps of the area.