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Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has been detained by mutinous soldiers. The reports citing security officials revealed on Monday.
Soldiers staged mutinies at multiple army barracks the day before, raising fears of a coup in the conflict-torn country. Heavy gunfire was also heard near Kabore’s apartment in the capital, Ouagadougou, later on Sunday.
On Monday morning, several presidential fleet armoured cars were visible near the mansion, all of which were riddled with gunshots. Blood was splattered on one of them.
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.
On Monday, journalist Henry Wilkins reported from Ouagadougou, “We just passed the military base where Kabore is supposed to be imprisoned at the present.”
“Traffic is flowing normally, but there is a disproportionately large number of military soldiers on the streets outside the presidential palace,” says the official.
The president, along with other government leaders, was also arrested, according to the AFP news agency.
Two security officials reported that at the Sangoule Lamizana barracks in the capital, “President Kabore, the president of parliament, and the ministries are practically in the hands of the soldiers.”
Kabore is being held “in a safe area,” according to two of the dissident soldiers who spoke to The Associated Press by phone early Monday.
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 related to al-Qaeda and the terrorist group ISIL (ISIS) are intensifying, killing thousands of people and displacing over 1.5 million people. The military has sustained a significant number of casualties.
Angry mutinous soldiers said that the government was cut off from its forces on the ground, that their comrades were dying, and that they demanded military leadership. The soldiers called a man who claimed to be looking for better working conditions for Burkina Faso’s military.
‘Government that is out of its depth’
According to one of the mutinous soldiers, some 100 military members planned the coup since August. He claimed that the organisers never met in the same place more than twice and that they always met outside of the capital. He stated that they planned using chat apps like Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegraph.