The Latest Breaking News from Burkina Faso

As France and its European allies prepare to leave Mali, Paris plans to increase its military cooperation with Niger in the fight against Islamist insurgents in the Sahel. But it’s a marriage of convenience as coups and rising anti-French sentiments in the region have left Paris with little choice.

France’s announcement that it will withdraw its troops from Mali has been anticipated by many in this West African nation where Malians have protested the presence of soldiers from the former colonial power

Burkina Faso’s junta leader Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba has been sworn in as president Wednesday, less than a month after mutinous soldiers seized control of the West African country in a coup

Swearing-in ceremony takes place some three weeks after military coup that overthrew Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

West Africa’s latest successful coup, in Burkina Faso on 24 January 2022, has renewed unease about coups “returning” and democracies “dying” in Africa. The recent attempt in Guinea-Bissau, too, recalled the first decades after independence, when coups were rampant.

French counter-terrorism forces based in West Africa have killed ten suspected jihadists accused of involvement in a massacre of police officers in Burkina Faso last November.

Nine people including a Frenchman were killed this week in attacks in a national park in Benin's remote north bordering troubled Niger and Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso’s Constitutional Council says that junta leader Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba has been declared president

The latest blow to democracy is the explosion of coups around the world. Weak democratic governments that are failing to deliver are being overthrown. This global phenomenon has been most evident in West Africa.