DOUALA, Cameroon
Burkina Faso’s army stated on Saturday that the toppled former president of the West African nation had taken refuge in a army camp within the capital, planning to launch a counter-offensive in opposition to the junta.
Talking on state tv, the military officers stated Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Damiba, the transitional president ousted on Friday, was planning to trigger hassle for the protection and safety forces from the bottom in Ouagadougou.
Damiba, who had been in energy since January after staging a coup of his personal, “is alleged to have taken refuge within the French army base at Kamboinsin,” the place “he plans to launch a counter-offensive,” stated the junta, now led by Capt. Ibrahim Traore.
“This follows our agency will to go to different companions prepared to assist us within the combat in opposition to terrorism,” stated Traore.
He invited the inhabitants “to not fall into this lure” within the combat to revive the territorial integrity of the nation, lengthy tormented by the specter of terrorism.
Damiba was faraway from energy after conflicting reviews early on Friday accompanied by gunfire in Ouagadougou which has continued into Saturday.
He had taken energy in January from former elected President Roch Marc Kabore, blaming him for failing to safe the nation within the grip of terrorism.
Related accusations have been leveled in opposition to Damiba, whom his successors say was unable to deal with insecurity and was serving the pursuits of former colonizer France.
France on Saturday denied any involvement of its army within the newest developments.
“The camp the place the French forces are situated has by no means welcomed Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, nor has our embassy,” the French Overseas Ministry wrote in a press release.
The brand new junta additionally dissolved the structure and suspended the federal government and all political and civil society actions. It has additionally ordered the closure of land and air borders till additional discover.
It later determined to carry the curfew for Saturday night, calling on the general public to “a patriotic vigil, a complete and fixed mobilization in opposition to obscurantist forces who undermine the efforts in opposition to the widespread combat for the restoration of the integrity,” of the nation.
The military’s basic workers acknowledged on Saturday that the army was at the moment going by way of a critical political-military disaster together with on the safety disaster affecting the inhabitants.
“Following an inside disaster throughout the Nationwide Armed Forces, some items have taken management of sure streets within the metropolis of Ouagadougou, demanding in a press release the departure of Lieutenant Colonel Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba,” it stated.
The African Union (AU), EU, and Financial Group of West African States (ECOWAS) have condemned the second coup in lower than a 12 months in a rustic that has skilled a number of since its independence.
It’s “inappropriate,” ECOWAS stated.
In a press release, UN Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres additionally “strongly” condemned “any try to seize energy by pressure of arms” in Burkina Faso.
He referred to as on all actors to chorus from violence and to offer priority to dialogue, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric stated in a press release.
