More than 26,000 people, including troops, militia members, and civilians, have died in Burkina Faso since 2016, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
The military administration of Burkina Faso declared that it had thwarted “multiple attempts to destabilize the country,” spearheaded by a former senior army officer who had previously taken over the country in West Africa.
Security Minister Mahamadou Sana said, “We were able to foil several attempts at destabilization,” in a statement that was broadcast late on Monday on official television.
He added the “military part of this plot” had been led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who was removed from office in 2022.
According to Sana, a number of people, including Ahmed Kinda, a former head of the nation’s special forces, have been taken into custody in relation to the conspiracy.
In a coup against elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore in January 2022, Damiba took control.
A little over eight months later, the currently-in-power 34-year-old captain Ibrahim Traore toppled Damiba himself.
Burkina Faso has been dealing with an armed insurgency from the ISGS, a terror group affiliated with Daesh in the Greater Sahara, and the al Qaeda-linked JNIM, which both invaded the nation from Mali in 2016, under the leadership of Ibrahim Traore’s military administration.
