the head of the junta removed from his functions, announce the soldiers on television

The head of the junta in Burkina Faso, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who came to power in a putsch at the end of January, was removed from office by soldiers on Friday evening, in a statement read on national television.

After a day peppered with shooting in the district of the presidency in Ouagadougou, about fifteen soldiers in fatigues and for some hooded spoke, shortly before 8:00 p.m. (GMT and local) on the set of national radio and television.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba is removed from his position as president of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration” (MPSR, the ruling body of the junta), the soldiers said in a statement read by a captain.

The new strongman of the country, designated president of the MPSR, is now captain Ibrahim Traoré, he added.

“We have decided to take our responsibilities”

The putschists also announced the closure of the country’s land and air borders from midnight, as well as the suspension of the Constitution and the dissolution of the government and the Transitional Legislative Assembly.

A curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. is also in place. The soldiers invoke “the continuous deterioration of the security situation” in the country. “We have decided to take our responsibilities, driven by a single ideal, the restoration of the security and integrity of our territory,” they continued.

Mr. Damiba had promised when taking power to make security his priority, in this country undermined for years by bloody jihadist attacks. But these have multiplied in recent months, especially in the North.

Since 2015, recurrent attacks by armed movements affiliated with the jihadists of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, mainly in the north and east of the country, have killed thousands and caused the displacement of some two million people. .