Another Coup in West Africa: The Burkina Faso Military Seizes Power
Another Coup in West Africa: The Burkina Faso Military Seizes Power
Podcast / Africa 1 minutes

Another Coup in West Africa: The Burkina Faso Military Seizes Power

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood talks with Crisis Group expert Rinaldo Depagne about the coup in Burkina Faso, the latest in a series of military takeovers in Africa.

Burkina Faso is the latest in a string of African states to fall victim to a military coup. Late January saw Burkinabé soldiers oust President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, dissolve the government and suspend the country's constitution. Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, the coup leader, has promised to address burgeoning violence across much of Burkina’s countryside. Fighting between jihadist militants and the army, together with state-backed militias, has over the past few years killed thousands and displaced 1.5 million people. Many Burkinabé, frustrated at the government’s inability to curb violence, took to the streets in celebration at the military’s power grab. The Burkina coup is the fifth in Africa over the past year, part of a worrying uptick in military takeovers on the continent. 

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood is joined by Rinaldo Depagne, Crisis Group’s deputy Africa director and an expert on Burkina Faso, to talk about the coup and its ramifications. They discuss the instability across parts of Burkina that fuelled anger within the population and military, paving the way for the coup. They talk about what Damiba and the military will do next, how his power grab might impact the country’s struggles against Islamist militancy and how it might shape politics in West Africa and the Sahel more broadly. They look at the Burkina coup alongside other military takeovers on the continent and discuss what is driving more frequent coups and the dilemmas the trend poses regional organisations, Western powers and the UN.  

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For more information, explore Crisis Group’s analysis on our Sahel regional page and keep an eye out for an upcoming Q&A.

Contributors

Executive Vice President
atwoodr
Deputy Program Director, Africa & Project Director, West Africa

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