More than 250 civilians have been killed by Islamist extremists in Burkina Faso in less than a year, a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.

The report's release comes amid increasing attacks in the West African country's north and east.

"Armed Islamist groups in Burkina Faso have attacked civilians with unmitigated cruelty and utter disregard for human life," said Corinne Dufka, the group's West Africa director. "Deliberately targeting farmers, worshippers, mine workers, displaced people and traders are war crimes."

Since April 2019, at least 20 attacks have been carried out by militant groups linked to al-Qaeda, killing at least 256 people. The deteriorating security situation has also forced more than half a million people to flee their homes.

In one major attack, extremists killed at least 35 civilians, mostly women, and the ensuing clashes with security forces left 80 extremists dead. Another attack weeks earlier against a convoy carrying employees of a Canadian mining company killed at least 37 civilians in the country's east.

Both attacks were by close to 100 fighters, indicating the presence of relatively large, well-organized extremist groups.

For years Burkina Faso was spared the kind of Islamic extremism long seen across the border in Mali, where it took a 2013 French-led military intervention to dislodge fighters from power in several major towns. That changed with a pair of deadly attacks in 2016 and 2017 in the capital, Ouagadougou, that targeted spots popular with foreigners.

Attacks that initially were focused in the northern Sahel region have steadily spread.

Burkina Faso's military has however received training and support from France and the U.K., with hopes that the security situation will improve.