LOROUM: Authorities in Burkina Faso have declared a two-day period of mourning after suspected militants killed at least 41 members of a government-backed civilian militia in the country's desert north this week. A column of civilian fighters from the Homeland Defense Volunteers, a group the government funds and trains to contain Islamist insurgents, was ambushed on Thursday as it swept a remote area in the northern Loroum Province, authorities said on Saturday. It was one of the heaviest single-day losses the civilian militia has experienced to date and occurred one month after an attack on a gendarmerie post killed 53 people.