On December 1, suspected Islamic radicals killed fourteen Christians attending church in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. While traditionally a peaceful country, religious conflict has been increasing in the last year, according to the New York Times. Many northern parts of the country have been in contention as Islamic insurgency attempts to gain control. 39 mineworkers were killed in an attack on buses earlier this year on November 9.
The attack was decried as “barbaric” on Twitter by Burkina Faso’s President, Roch Marc Christian Kabore who went on to give “deepest condolences to the bereaved families and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded.”
Marine archeologists around the Falkland Islands have recently uncovered the remains of a German cruiser, the SMS Scharnhorst, which was sunk on December 8, 1914, during World War I. German Vice-Admiral Maximillian Graf von Spee and 800 other sailors were killed when the British sunk the ship.
Archeologists have been searching for the wreckage of the German ship for the past five years, according to the BBC. Before being sunk, the ship had been involved in fighting off the coast of Chile during the Battle of Coronel.
“Suddenly she just came out of the gloom with great guns poking in every direction," archeologist Mensun Bound said. "As a Falkland Islander and a marine archaeologist, a discovery of this significance is an unforgettable, poignant moment in my life.”
Four suspects in a high profile, multiple perpetrator rape and murder case were shot dead by police in India on December 6. The week before, the burned body of a missing 27-year-old woman was found under a bridge in Hyderabad. It was while police were attempting to reconstruct the crime scenes in Shadnagar that the conflict broke out. With one suspect attempting to take a weapon from one of the police officers, the investigation turned violent and the four suspects were shot according to an anonymous police witness.
India had experienced large protests against the crime prior to the shooting of the suspects. In response to the shooting, flowers were given to police officers by about 300 people in Shadnagar. They also chanted, “Long live the police,” according to the AP.
Just off the coast of Mauritania, a migrant boat capsized on December 4, leading to the death of 63 people so far. The incident occurred near the city of Nouadhibou where members of the coast guard and other rescue workers are still searching for people.
Of the nearly 150 African migrants who had been on board the boat, eighty-three of them swam to shore. Spain’s Canary Islands was the original destination for the boat which was primarily composed of people from Gambia and several from Senegal. The migrant boat had been running low on supplies around the time of its capsizing.
"Many drowned. The ones who survived swam up to the Mauritanian coast close to the city of Nouadhibou," said Laura Lungarotti of the U.N. to the AP. "The Mauritanian authorities are very efficiently coordinating the response with the agencies currently present.”