Ouagadougou | The situation was confused on Monday concerning the fate of the president of Burkina Faso Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, whose security sources announced that he was detained by soldiers who mutinied in the face of degradation in their country plagued by jihadist violence.
• Read also: Burkina Faso: soldiers mutinied to demand the departure of army chiefs
• Read also: Mali: four soldiers killed in an attack in the west of the country
The West African states have indicated that they are following “with great concern” the evolution of the situation in Burkina Faso, “characterized” since Sunday “by an attempted coup d’etat”.
“President Kaboré, the head of Parliament (Alassane Bala Sakandé) and ministers are indeed in the hands of the soldiers”, at the Sangoulé Lamizana barracks in Ouagadougou, a security source told AFP, information confirmed by another source. within the security services.
But a government source then claimed that the president had been “exfiltrated” from his residence on Sunday evening by gendarmes from his guard “before the arrival of armed elements who fired on the vehicles of his convoy”.
An AFP journalist saw in the morning near the residence of the Head of State three vehicles riddled with bullets. Traces of blood were visible on one of them.
According to this source “the situation is confused”, a confusion fueled by the absence at midday Monday of any statement from the mutinous soldiers or relatives of the Head of State.
On Mr. Kaboré’s Twitter account, a message posted at the beginning of the afternoon, of which it was impossible to know whether it had been written by him directly, or under what circumstances, invites “those who have taken up arms to deposit them in the superior interest of the Nation”. “It is through dialogue and listening that we must resolve our contradictions,” he adds.
In power since 2015, President Kaboré, re-elected in 2020 on the promise to make the anti-jihadist fight his priority, was increasingly contested by a population exasperated by jihadist violence and its powerlessness to deal with it.
Soldiers on national TV
An AFP journalist noted that a dozen hooded and armed soldiers had posted themselves on Monday morning in front of the headquarters of Radio Télévision du Burkina (RTB), which broadcast a report on the inhabitants of Ouagadougou normally going about their business.
France on Monday called on its nationals to be cautious and to avoid any travel to Burkina.
Soldiers mutinied on Sunday in several barracks to demand the departure of army chiefs and “appropriate means” to fight against the jihadists who have struck this country since 2015.
Shots were heard at the end of the day near the residence of the head of state and a helicopter flew over the area with all lights extinguished, according to residents.
These mutinies came as the Sahel is increasingly destabilized by jihadists who are also hitting neighboring Niger and Mali, a country that has been the scene of two coups in a few months.
Beyond that, in West Africa, the fragility of States also manifested itself with a putsch in Guinea.
Several angry demonstrations have taken place for several months in the cities of Burkina to denounce the inability of the authorities to counter the jihadist attacks which are multiplying, often prohibited and dispersed by the riot police.
Throughout the day on Sunday, demonstrators gave their support to the mutineers, before being dispersed by the police.
Further demonstrations of support took place on Monday.
“Adapted means”
The government had recognized shootings in several barracks, denying “a takeover by the army”.
“We want means adapted to the” anti-jihadist “struggle and substantial staff”, as well as the “replacement” of the highest ranking officers of the national army, affirmed in an audio recording sent to AFP a soldier from the Sangoulé Lamizana barracks, on condition of anonymity.
Fruitless discussions took place between the representatives of the mutineers and the Minister of Defence, General Barthélémy Simporé.
The Sangoulé Lamizana camp in Ouagadougou, where President Kaboré could be, is also the one where General Gilbert Diendéré, close to former President Blaise Compaoré, who was overthrown in 2014, is imprisoned.
General Diendéré was sentenced to 20 years in prison for an attempted coup in 2015 against President Kaboré and is currently on trial for his alleged role in the 1987 assassination of then-President Thomas Sankara, a pan-African icon.
The trial of the alleged assassins of Sankara, which was to enter Monday in the phase of indictments and pleadings before the military court of Ouagadougou, has been postponed to an indefinite date, according to a judicial source.
In the wake of Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of violence attributed to armed jihadist groups, affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, which in nearly seven years have caused more than 2,000 dead and forced 1.5 million people to flee their homes.