OUAGADOUGOU — An
African Union (AU) envoy on
Friday urged international support for Burkina Faso’s transition to civilian
rule, as the junta-led country battles a militant Islamist insurgency.
اضافة اعلان
“We demand the support of the international
community in Burkina Faso to face all challenges,” including in matters of
security, said Bankole Adeoye, the head of the AU’s Peace and Security Council,
as he visited Ouagadougou.
Burkina’s ruling junta took power in a January coup
that ousted former president Roch Marc Christian Kabore, amid widespread anger
at the government’s failure to deal with the extremist violence that spread
across the border from Mali in 2015.
The country’s Western African neighbors have agreed
to allow the junta led by Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba two years for its
transition back to democracy.
“We have evaluated ... the plan for the transition
to result in elections,” Adeoye said, as he headed an AU delegation visiting
Burkina Faso.
“We all need to work together ... to face the
security, extremism and crime problems,” he said, referring to the AU and
neighboring countries also fighting extremism in the Sahel region.
He stressed “the need to ensure a good credible,
transparent and fair transition”, and said the AU would increase its support
when it noted “clear steps towards improvement”.
The junta has proposed a constitutional referendum
in December 2024 and legislative and presidential elections in February 2025.
The Islamist insurgency in the landlocked Sahel
state has claimed more than 2,000 lives and forced some 1.9 million people to
flee their homes.
The government does not have control over more than
40 percent of the country’s territory, according to official data.
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