Burkina Faso junta chief Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba
OUAGADOUGOU,
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso junta chief
Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who took power in a January
coup, has sacked his defence minister and assumed the role himself after a
series of jihadist attacks, according to decrees published Monday.
The first decree, read on
national television, removed General Barthelemy Simpore as defence minister,
while the second said the "president has taken over the duties of the
minister of national defence and veterans".
Damiba headed a group of
officers who mounted a coup on January 24, toppling elected leader Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who had failed to stem the
jihadist insurgency that first emerged in Mali in
2012.
Much of the Sahel region is
now battling the insurgency after it spread to Burkina
Faso in 2015, then to Niger. In
recent years, the violence has also begun to spill over into West African
coastal states Ivory Coast and Togo.
The mini-shuffle in Burkina
Faso is the first since the appointment of a transitional government in March.
At that time, Damiba chose to retain Simpore, who had been appointed by Kabore.
In another change,
Colonel-Major Silas Keita was named minister delegate in charge of national
defence and promoted to brigadier general. He was the only new minister
introduced.
The shuffle follows a string
of deadly jihadist attacks this month in the landlocked West African country,
where the insurgency has claimed more than 2,000 lives and forced about 1.4
million people to leave their homes.
Attacks have increased since
the start of the year, despite the junta's vow to make security its top
priority.
September has been
particularly bloody.
Two soldiers died and a dozen
"terrorists" were killed Monday during an attack against a military
detachment in Burkina Faso's jihadist-hit north, the army said.
Less than a week earlier,
security sources said separate attacks by suspected jihadists had killed nine
people, mostly civilians, in the north.
On September 5, at least 35
civilians were killed and 37 wounded when an improvised explosive device blast
struck a convoy carrying supplies between Djibo and Bourzanga.
In early September, Damiba had
welcomed a "relative calm" in several locations. He said
"offensive actions" by the army had been intensified and asserted
that a dialogue process with certain armed groups had led "dozens of
youth" to lay down their arms.
But the attacks remain
numerous.
More than 40 percent of the
country is outside government control.
No comments:
Post a Comment