Four Officers Detained After Thwarted Burkina Coup

Four officers have been detained for questioning in Burkina Faso, a prosecutor said on Thursday, a day after the military government announced it had thwarted a coup attempt.

The four are suspected of involvement in a “conspiracy against state security”, military prosecutor Ahmed Ferdinand Sountoura said in a statement seen by AFP on Thursday.

Two others are “on the run”, the statement said.

Late Wednesday, the junta said the intelligence and security services had foiled a coup attempt the previous day.

It came nearly a year to the day since junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in the West African country on September 30, 2022.

His takeover was the country’s second coup in eight months — both triggered in part by discontent at failures to stem a raging jihadist insurgency which swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

Late on Tuesday, thousands of people had taken to the streets of the capital Ouagadougou following a call from Traore supporters to “defend” him amid rumours of a coup on social media.