Ouagadougou – The authorities in Burkina Faso only control 60% of the country, West Africa’s mediator for the country said on Saturday after talks with the junta there.
“Today 40% of the territory is out of the control of the state,” said Ecowas envoy Mahamadou Issoufou.
“Burkina Faso today is facing a multidimensional crisis: security, humanitarian, political and socio-economic,” he said after talks with the junta’s leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
Issoufou, a former president of Niger appointed by the 15-nation regional bloc as a mediator to the country, was in Ouagadougou to discuss the timetable for a return to democratic rule.
The country’s new military rulers, who seized power in January say elections will be held in three years, evoking the security situation – the country is fighting a jihadist insurgency – to justify the delay.
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The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has suspended Burkina and threatened punitive measures unless its military rulers speed up the process.
Damiba overthrew elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore, accusing him of failing to tackle the violence, and said restoring security was his top priority.
But the bloodshed has continued. Last weekend, 89 people were killed in the northern village of Seytenga, one of the worst massacres in the country’s history.
“These events, very painful, prove how difficult the security situation remains,” said Issoufou.
Since 2015, Burkina Faso has been caught up in an escalating wave of violence attributed to jihadist fighters allied to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
The violence there has claimed more than 2 000 lives and forced 1.9 million people to flee their homes.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Twitter/@ecowas_cedeao
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