Description
Added on the 31/01/2022 20:01:42 - Copyright : France 24 EN
The West African bloc ECOWAS on Friday suspended Burkina Faso following a coup, but will not impose other sanctions for the time being, a participant at a virtual summit said.
West African heads of state on Friday began talks on how to respond to a new coup in Burkina Faso, hours after the military junta there appealed for international support. Burkina President Roch Marc Christian Kabore was overthrown on Monday by mutineering soldiers on the back of public anger at his failure to stem jihadist violence ravaging the impoverished nation. FRANCE 24's Chinwe Ossondu reports.
More than 1,000 people gathered in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou on Tuesday in support of a coup that a day earlier ousted President Roch Kabore, dissolved government, suspended the constitution and closed borders. The latest in a long history of coups in West Africa comes amid an increasingly bloody Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions across the Sahel region. FRANCE 24's Chief Foreign Editor Rob Parsons tells us more.
Andrew Lebovich, Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), joins France 24 to put the military takeover in greater perspective. "There's growing concern about the threat of further coups," explains Mr. Lebovich. "This is something that ECOWAS is very sensitive to, the African Union is very sensitive to." And he warns that it is a serious "point of concern for these governments to try to avoid that their own militaries might step in and depose them at some point, especially if there's some popular pressure."
The international community has expressed outrage at the coup d’etat in Mali that ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Tuesday. The UN Secretary-General called for the immediate return to constitutional order and rule of law, demands reiterated by France, while Germany also condemned the military coup.
|
Support : Technical 
- Content 
- Editors 
