An update on the coup in Burkina Faso

WAMU 88.5 | By Rupert Allman

Published January 25, 2022 at 9:20 AM EST

A man buys a newspaper with theh the picture of Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba the leader of the mutiny and of the Patriotic Movement for the Protection and the Restauration (MPSR) in Ouagadougou.

The military has seized power in Burkina Faso, a coup that will likely impact even more than the 20 million people who live on the southern edge of the Sahara. On Monday, soldiers appeared on TV to announce their takeover.

The declaration made clear that the country’s government and parliament had been dissolved. And that the military had closed the country’s borders, with a vague promise to return to constitutional order within a “reasonable time.”

This landlocked country has had at least eight coups since it secured its independence from France in 1960.

Recently militant groups to Burkina Faso’s north – in Mali – have launched a violent campaign as part of a broader upheaval in this part of West Africa.

Burkina Faso’s president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, had faced growing criticism from civilians and the military over his government’s inability to beat back the Islamist insurgents.

Rida Lyammouri is a Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South. He joins us to talk about the issue.