Heavy gunfire in Burkina Faso capital, soldiers on streets, sparking coup fears

Heavy gunfire rang out early Friday in Burkina Faso’s capital — near the presidential palace, the main military camp and some residential areas — and the state broadcaster went off the air, sparking fears of a mutiny nine months after a military coup d’etat overthrew the country’s president.
Soldiers are reported to have taken up positions along the avenue leading to the presidential palace and blocked access to administrative buildings and the national television. A government spokesman could not be reached. It was not immediately known where Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba was in the West African country. He had given a speech the day before in Djibo, in the north of Burkina Faso. Last week, Damiba had traveled to New York where he addressed the United Nations General Assembly as the country’s coup leader-turned-president. In his speech, he defended his 24 January coup as “an issue of survival for our nation,” even if it was ”perhaps reprehensible” to the international community.
It was not clear yet if this was a coup attempt but it bore the hallmarks of other power grabs that have swept across West and Central Africa over the past two years. That takeover was largely celebrated by civilians fed up with former President Roch Kabore’s civilian government that was unable to rein in Islamist militants who have killed thousands of civilians in recent years and taken over large parts of the north and east. Yet the violence has failed to wane in the months since Damiba took over. Burkina Faso’s coup came in the wake of similar takeovers in Mali and in Guinea, heightening fears of a rollback of democracy in West Africa.