{"id":1233189,"date":"2022-10-24T17:22:21","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T17:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/10\/24\/burkina-faso-coup-leader-sworn-in-as-interim-president\/"},"modified":"2022-10-24T17:22:21","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T17:22:21","slug":"burkina-faso-coup-leader-sworn-in-as-interim-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/10\/24\/burkina-faso-coup-leader-sworn-in-as-interim-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Burkina Faso coup leader sworn in as interim president"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div wp_automatic_readability=\"102\">\n<p><figure><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Captain Ibrahim Traore led the West African nation\u2019s second coup this year. [File: Kilaye Bationo\/AP Photo]<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Captain Ibrahim Traore has been sworn in as interim president of Burkina Faso, several weeks after Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was removed in a coup.<\/p>\n<p>At a ceremony on Friday, Traore pledged support for a transition leading to elections in July 2024 as he took the oath of office in the capital Ouagadougou under tight security.<\/p>\n<p>After taking the oath, Traore, dressed in military fatigues and a scarf with the country\u2019s national colours, said: \u201cWe are confronted with a security and humanitarian crisis without precedent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur aims are none other than the reconquest of territory occupied by these hordes of terrorists,\u201d he added. \u201cBurkina\u2019s existence is in danger\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Traore led disgruntled junior officers on September 30 in the\u00a0second coup\u00a0in eight months in the West African country.<\/p>\n<p>Damiba had himself\u00a0seized power\u00a0only in January, forcing out Burkina Faso\u2019s last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore.<\/p>\n<p>The official investiture followed an announcement earlier this week by the constitutional council, which said the 34-year-old Traore had been designated as \u201cpresident of the transition, head of state, supreme chief of the national armed forces\u201d by a national meeting of the country\u2019s forces.<\/p>\n<p>In its statement on Wednesday, the council said it officially took note of Damiba\u2019s \u201cresignation\u201d and \u201cthe vacancy of the presidency\u201d.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"mE3a_mo1h2w\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ibrahim Traore declared Burkina Faso president after coup\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mE3a_mo1h2w?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Burkina Faso has witnessed political instability amid anger at failures to stem a seven-year\u00a0armed uprising\u00a0that has claimed thousands of lives and driven nearly two million people from their homes.<\/p>\n<p>Sam Mednick, a journalist in Ouagadougou, told Al Jazeera that Traore had stressed in his speech that the existence of the country was in peril and that it was a priority to make the nation secure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSpeaking to community leaders, soldiers and diplomats, they say he has many challenges ahead, one of them being that the army is not united,\u201d Mednick said. \u201cA lot of people still stand by his predecessor, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who was ousted and is now in Togo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Damiba was removed from power due to his perceived inability to deal with a worsening armed uprising in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Traore is not going to be able to show tangible progress quickly, people say he\u2019s going to be ousted just like his predecessor,\u201d Mednick said.<\/p>\n<p>The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) strongly\u00a0condemned the coup, saying that it came at an \u201cinopportune\u201d time when progress was being made towards a return to constitutional order.<\/p>\n<p>The United Nations on Thursday said the humanitarian situation in Burkina Faso has become so dire that some women and children have eaten only leaves and salt for weeks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrowing insecurity and blockades in many areas have left communities cut off from the rest of the country and facing growing hunger. Aid workers are struggling to reach these people who need assistance,\u201d UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>A quarter of Burkina Faso\u2019s population \u2013 nearly five million people \u2013 is in need of emergency assistance, yet less than a third of the needed $805m for the country\u2019s response plan is funded.<\/p>\n<p>Attacks by armed groups, including some associated with al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS), increased in mid-March despite the military government\u2019s pledge to make security its top priority.<\/p>\n<p>In September, Damiba sacked his defence minister and assumed the role himself.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0struggle\u00a0to contain rebel groups has prompted a series of coups in Mali, Guinea and Chad since 2020.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"LgS3lEuWF2I\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Obra on Adom TV (24-10-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LgS3lEuWF2I?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Captain Ibrahim Traore led the West African nation\u2019s second coup this year. [File: Kilaye Bationo\/AP Photo] Captain Ibrahim Traore has been sworn in as interim president of Burkina Faso, several weeks after Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was removed in a coup. At a ceremony on Friday, Traore pledged support for a transition leading to elections in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1233191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1233189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1233189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1233189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1233189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1233189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}