Five people have been killed in Burkina Faso in a clash between police and angry youths who went on the rampage at a police station after a young man was shot dead, the security ministry said Saturday.

A crowd of about 100 youths stormed the police station in the western town of Orodara on Friday after the alleged gunman took shelter there following the deadly shooting of the young man earlier Friday.

Five people were killed and eight wounded in the clash, the ministry said in a statement, without giving details about the victims.

“Gendarmerie and police reinforcements have been deployed in Orodara where calm has returned,” a security source said.

A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed in the town, where the market and other public venues were closed and gatherings banned, according to provincial commissioner Abdallah Sangare.

Last week, two policemen were lynched Nafona, another town in the west of the country, by a crowd opposed to an arrest they were making.

Burkina Faso lies in the heart of the vast Sahel region, which is struggling with a bloody Islamist insurgency.

The region turned into a hotbed of violent extremism and lawlessness after chaos engulfed Libya in 2011.

AFP