Burkina Faso experienced a second coup in eight months on Friday, September 30: Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who came to power in a putsch at the end of January, was in turn dismissed from his post by military.
After one day marked by shootings in the district of the presidency in Ouagadougou, about fifteen soldiers dressed in fatigues and for some hooded took the floor, on the set of Radiodiffusion-Télévision du Burkina Faso, shortly before 10 p.m. Captain Ibrahim Traoré read a press release announcing the dismissal of Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the dissolution of the government and the suspension of the Constitution, as well as the closure of the country’s borders until further notice. A curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. has also been put in place.
Ibrahim Traoré, the country’s new strongman
“Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba’s risky choices have gradually weakened our security system. The red tape that characterized the fallen regime worsened during the transition, also compromising operations of a strategic nature”, said one of the putschists on television, reports the journalist from “World Africa” Morgane Le Cam.
Putsch in #Burkina – this evening at the RTB: “We decided this day 09/30/22 to disqualify Lieutenant-Colonel Damib… https://t.co/42A2A2VRDu
The new strongman of the country, appointed president of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration (MPSR, the ruling body of the junta), is now Captain Ibrahim Traoré, he added. Mr. Traoré, 34, was until now the head of the anti-jihadist special forces unit “Cobra” in the Kaya region (north).
The putschists promised to convene “incessantly the living forces of the Nation” to designate a “new president of Faso, civilian or military”. Mr. Damiba’s fate remained unknown on Friday evening.
They also announced the closure of the country’s land and air borders from midnight, as well as the suspension of the Constitution and the dissolution of the government and the Transitional Legislative Assembly. A curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. has also been put in place.
ECOWAS condemnation
In a press release, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – whose authorities Burkina has been suspended from since the January coup – said “condemned in the strongest terms the seizure of power by force which has just taken place”. ECOWAS finds “this new coup is inopportune at a time when progress has been made (…) for a return to constitutional order no later than 1er July 2024 ».
The European Union has also expressed its “worries”just like the United States which has called on its citizens to limit their movements. “We call for a return to calm and restraint on the part of all parties”, said a spokesman for the State Department. The French foreign ministry has asked its nationals in Ouagadougou, estimated at between 4,000 and 5,000, to stay at home.
Friday was very tense in the Burkinabe capital, shots having been heard before dawn in the district housing the presidency and the headquarters of the junta, according to several witnesses, then again at the start of the afternoon.
Several axes of the city were blocked all day by soldiers posted on the main crossroads of the city, in particular in front of the headquarters of the national television.
Russian flags
In the afternoon, several hundred people, some of whom were waving Russian flags, gathered in the large Place de la Nation in Ouagadougou to demand military cooperation with Russia, reject the French military presence in the Sahel and demand the departure of Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse. Moscow’s influence has continued to grow in several French-speaking African countries in recent years.
Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba took power in a coup at the end of January, promising to make security his priority, in this country undermined for years by bloody jihadist attacks. But these have multiplied in recent months, especially in the North.
Since 2015, recurrent attacks by armed movements affiliated with the jihadists of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization, mainly in the north and east of the country, have killed thousands and caused the displacement of some two million of people.