He is not welcome. A large logistics convoy of the French army is the source of disputes in Burkina Faso, where demonstrators have been opposing, since Thursday, its passage through the territory to reach neighboring Niger. At least four people were injured on Saturday, November 20, in Kaya, the main town in the north-central part of the country.
“This morning, the tension escalated between the demonstrators and the soldiers of the French army who spent the night on a vacant lot. While demonstrators tried to approach the perimeter, soldiers fired warning shots “, explained to Agence France-Presse (AFP) a local source joined to Kaya, evoking “Gunshot wounds”, what confirmed a hospital source.
“Four people wounded by bullets were received in the emergency services of the regional hospital of Kaya”, informed this hospital source, specifying that the “The patient’s vital prognosis is not at stake”. The state daily Sidwaya reported on Saturday evening of “Three wounded following warning shots”, specifying that one of them has “Shot in the cheek”.
“Free the Sahel”
AFP could not determine the origin of the bullets, the French and Burkinabe soldiers having all fired warning shots to disperse the demonstrators according to corroborating sources.
“A group of demonstrators tried to cut the fence to get into the grip and the Burkinabé gendarmes fired tear gas canisters to disperse the crowd. French soldiers fired warning shots above the crowd ”, said a source from the French general staff. “There were no injuries due to the action of the French soldiers. We do not know of any casualties, even following the tear gas canisters ”, according to the same source which ensures that “Negotiations are underway between the Burkinabé authorities and the demonstrators”.
On Friday, thousands of people gathered in Kaya to oppose the passage of this convoy, coming from Côte d’Ivoire and bound for Niger. Slogans such as “French Army clears”, “Free the Sahel”, “No more military convoy of French invasion and recolonization”, were written on signs and banners brandished by demonstrators. Fists in the air, they sang the Burkinabe national anthem in front of the French convoy of several dozen vehicles.
This “Convoy of sixty trucks and a hundred French soldiers from Abidjan heading for Niamey then Gao” is not “Not a convoy to transport weapons to jihadists, as we can read on social networks”, underlined the French staff.
Calls for the resignation of the president
The advance of the convoy had already been blocked Wednesday and Thursday by demonstrators in Bobo Dioulasso (west), then in the capital Ouagadougou where the Burkinabe security forces had to use tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, according to Roland Bayala. – speech of the Coalition of African Patriots of Burkina Faso (Copa-BF), which called for these demonstrations.
“We have decided to block it, because despite the agreements signed with France, we continue to record deaths and our countries remain under-armed”, he told AFP.
On Tuesday, several hundred people took part in demonstrations in several cities across the country to demand the resignation of Burkinabe President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré for his “Inability to end terrorist attacks”, two days after a jihadist attack killing at least 53 people, including 49 gendarmes in Inata, in the north of the country.
Burkina Faso has been facing regular and deadly jihadist attacks since 2015, particularly in the northern and eastern regions, in the so-called “three borders” area, on the borders of Mali and Niger, two countries also facing to the operations of armed jihadists.