Burkina Faso: the head of the junta removed from office, announce soldiers on television – Le Monde

Screen capture from a video broadcast by state television RTB showing putsch spokesman Captain Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho reading a statement, in Ougadougou, September 30, 2022. AP Burkina Faso experienced on Friday September 30 a second coup in eight months: 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 the military. After a 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 statement announcing the sidelining 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 “Monde Afrique” journalist Morgane Le Cam. Putsch in #Burkina – this evening at the RTB: “We decided today 09/30/22 to depose Lieutenant-Colonel Damib… https://t.co/42A2A2VRDu— MorganeLeCam (@Morgane Le Cam) The new man strong in the country, designated 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 “immediately the living forces of the Nation” in order to designate a “new president of Faso, civilian or military”. Mr. Damiba’s fate remained unknown on Friday evening. Soldiers are deployed in the streets of Ouagadougou, several roads of which have been blocked, on September 30, 2022. OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP 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 of the Transitional Legislative Assembly. A curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. has also been put in place. Condemnation of ECOWAS In a press release, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – whose authorities Burkina has been suspended since the January coup – “condemned in the strongest terms the taking of power by the force which has just taken place”. ECOWAS finds “this new coup de force inappropriate at a time when progress has been made (…) for a return to constitutional order no later than July 1, 2024”. The European Union has also expressed its “concerns”, as has the United States, which has called on its citizens to limit their movements. “We urge a return to calm and restraint on all sides,” a State Department spokesman said. 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 waved 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. Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Burkina Faso: in Djibo, a life under a jihadist blockade Since 2015, recurrent attacks by armed movements affiliated with the jihadists of Al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization, mainly in the north and l eastern part of the country, have left thousands dead and caused the displacement of some two million people. Le Monde with AFP and Reuters