Early on Friday, witnesses told AFP that gunfire was heard near the presidential palace and the military junta’s headquarters in Burkina Faso, which was overthrown in a coup in January.
Several major thoroughfares in the capital city of Ouagadougou were blocked by military personnel, and state television aired a blank screen with the message “no video signal,” according to AFP correspondents.
A resident who lives close to the presidential palace told AFP, “I heard heavy detonations around 4:30 am (0430 GMT), and now the roads around my home have been shut off by military vehicles.”
Troops were stationed on the main crossroads of the city, especially in the Ouaga 2000 neighbourhood that is home to the presidential and military junta headquarters, but also outside the headquarters of state television, an AFP journalist said.
Burkina Faso is currently ruled by a junta under Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
He took power in a January coup, ousting elected leader Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who failed to stem a jihadist insurgency. But the security situation has not improved.
On Monday, suspected jihadists attacked a convoy in the north of the country. The government said 11 soldiers died and around 50 civilians were missing.
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More than 40 percent of the country, a former French colony, is outside government control.
Thousands have died and about two million have been displaced by the fighting since 2015 when the insurgency spread into Burkina Faso.
Much of the Sahel region is battling the insurgency, which also spread to Niger. In recent years, the violence has begun to spill over into coastal states Ivory Coast and Togo.
AFP
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