Angry supporters of Burkina Faso’s coup leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, on Sunday morning, gathered outside the Frennch Embassy in the capital Ouagadougou to protest against the country’s former colonial masters after Traore had accused ousted Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba of hiding out at a French base to plot a “counteroffensive”.
Though French authorities had vehemently denied harbouring the deposed junta leader, the protesters who attacked the Embassy demanded that he should be released to them.
The demonstrators who reportedly set fire to barriers outside the Embassy and threw rocks at the building while French troops watched from the roof, were only dispersed when local soldiers relaesed a volley of teargas at them.
In a nationwide address on national television on Saturday, Traore had said Damiba “is believed to have taken refuge in the French base at Kamboinsin in order to plan a counteroffensive to stir up trouble in our defence and security forces,” which apparently incensed the protesters.
“If we wanted, we would take him within five minutes of fighting and maybe he would be dead, the president. But we don’t want this catastrophe. We don’t want to harm him, because we don’t have any personal problem with him. We’re fighting for Burkina Faso.
“We have no intention to bring Damiba to justice. We only wish that he would go rest because he is tired, and as for us we are going to continue to do the work.”
Damiba who rejected to the allegations later in the day, refuted that he was at a French base but refused to provide further details about his whereabouts.
“I call on Captain Traoré and company to come to their senses to avoid a fratricidal war that Burkina Faso does not need,” the statement attributed to Damiba said.
France Foreign Ministry, in a later statement, denied any involvement in the coup nor having Damiba in any of its biases.
“We deny the allegation that the
Burkinabe authorities have been hosted or are under the protection of the French military.
“The camp where the French forces are located has never welcomed Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, nor has our embassy,” the Ministry said.
The Friday putsch made it the second coup this year in Burkina Faso and the latest in the West African region after coups in Mali and Guinea in the last three years.
The latest wave of violence began on Friday morning when junior military officers overthrew interim military leader Damiba, accusing him of failing to deal decisively and curb attacks from armed Islamist militant groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda after seizing power in a coup in January after accusing President Roch Marc Christian Kabore of failing to beat back armed fighters.