COUP ATTEMPT: Four officers arrested after thwarted coup
According to CNN, Four army officers were arrested in Burkina Faso, a military prosecutor said, a day after the country’s ruling military junta announced it had thwarted a coup attempt.
Two other officers were “on the run,” according to a statement from the public prosecutor’s office at the military court in Ouagadougou, the capital city.
Burkina Faso’s military junta said in an earlier statement that intelligence and security services had foiled a “proven coup attempt” on Wednesday.
“A number of officers and other alleged actors involved in this destabilization attempt have been arrested, while others are being actively sought,” the statement said.
Relations between Burkina Faso and its former colonizer France have soured since frustrations over worsening insecurity spurred two military takeovers last year.
Burkina Faso junta suspends French magazine over ‘untruthful’ articles
Junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore later said on X, previously known as Twitter, that he was “committed to the liberation” of the country.
“I assure you of my determination to bring the Transition to a successful conclusion, despite adversity and the various manoeuvres designed to halt our inexorable march towards sovereignty,” his post added.
Traore seized power in the West African nation in a coup on September 30 last year in a day marked by gunfire and confusion in Ouagadougou. The coup was the second in eight months – with the leaders of both vowing to restore security after years of violence in the country.
Earlier this month, Burkina Faso’s military leaders signed a mutual defense pact with the juntas in Mali and Niger.
The tri-border region has become the epicenter of the violence that began in neighboring Mali in 2012 but has since spread across the arid expanse of the Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert (CNN)
