BURKINA FASO’S PRESIDENT KABORE DETAINED AT MILITARY CAMP: REPORTS

Demonstrators protesting against President Kabore.

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Mon 24 January 2022:

According to several media sources, Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kabore was detained at a military camp by a squad of soldiers.

According to sources, the president was apprehended by soldiers after gunshots was heard in various military barracks in the capital, Ouagadougou, on Sunday. Kabore was transported to one of the military barracks.

Several armoured vehicles of the presidential fleet, riddled with bullets, could be seen near the residence on Monday morning. One was spattered with blood.

An image shows a blood stained, bullet-riddled vehicle from the Burkina Faso presidential fleet

Kabore was seized at a military barracks, according to two security sources and a West African diplomat who spoke to Reuters. The administration, which had denied that a coup was taking place on Sunday, did not respond immediately.

“We just passed the military base where Kabore is alleged to be confined at the moment,” journalist Henry Wilkins reported from Ouagadougou on Monday.

“Traffic is circulating as normal but there is an usually high number of military personnel out on the streets around the presidential palace.”

AFP news agency also reported the president had been arrested along with other government officials.

“President Kabore, the head of parliament, and the ministers are effectively in the hands of the soldiers” at the Sangoule Lamizana barracks in the capital, two security officials said.

Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Two of the rebellious soldiers told The Associated Press by phone early Monday that Kabore was being held “in a safe place”, but would not specify where.

Kabore has been the president of Burkina Faso since 2015, after a popular revolt deposed longtime strongman President Blaise Compaore, who had ruled the country for nearly three decades. Kabore was re-elected for another five-year term in November 2020, but anger with his inability to stop the spread of violence across the country has grown.

Attacks linked to al-Qaeda and the ISIL (ISIS) are intensifying, killing thousands of people and displacing over 1.5 million people. The military has sustained a significant number of casualties.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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