The Chairman of the Board was removed from office by the rulers

The head of the military junta in Burkina Faso, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandako Damiba, who came to power at the end of January, was ousted by the military on Friday, September 30, in a statement read on national television. .

About fifteen soldiers in fatigues and some wearing masks spoke on national radio and television shortly before 8 p.m. (10 p.m.) after a day of gunfire in the Presidency district of Ouagadougou. “Lt. Col. Tamiba Removed as Chairman of Patriotic Movement for Defense and Reconstruction” (MPSR, the ruling body of the military junta), the army said in a statement read by a captain.

The country’s new strongman, appointed as the head of the MPSR, is now Captain Ibrahim Drey, he added. The rulers announced the closure of the country’s land and air borders from midnight, the suspension of the constitution and the dissolution of the government and interim legislature. Also curfew is in force from 9 pm to 5 am. Soldiers call it a “continuing deterioration of the security situation” in the country. “We have decided to take up our responsibilities driven by a single ideal, the restoration of the security and integrity of our territory.”They continued.

Paul-Henri Sandako Damiba had promised when he took power to make security his priority in a country wracked by years of bloody jihadist attacks. But these have increased manifold in recent months especially in the north.

Since 2015, a series of attacks by armed movements affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group’s jihadists, mainly in the north and east of the country, have killed thousands and displaced some two million people.