Burkina Faso

OUAGADOUGOU, June 24 (Reuters) - Burkina Faso's army has given civilians two weeks to evacuate vast areas in its northern and southeastern regions ahead of military operations against Islamist insurgents, it said on Friday.

The West African country's army this week ordered civilians to leave two large "military interest zones" to protect them, but did not specify how long they would have to evacuate or where they should go. 

One of the military zones is a rural area of around 2,000 square kilometres (772 square miles) bordering Mali in the northern province of Soum.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Gunmen killed at least 55 people over the weekend in northern Burkina Faso, authorities said Monday, the latest attack in the West African country where mounting violence is blamed on Islamic extremists.

Suspected militants targeted civilians in Seytenga in Seno province, government spokesman Wendkouni Joel Lionel Bilgo said at a news conference. While the government put the official toll at 55, others put the figure far higher.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Ami Sana hangs a tattered tarp for a bit of shade where she can rest on a break from pounding stones under the scorching sun.

“The work is hard. It makes my body weak, but what else can I do?” she asked.

The mother of six is one of 2 million people displaced by Burkina Faso’s rapidly rising Islamic extremist violence, according to the U.N.

Amid the clamor of clanging pickaxes and falling rocks, Sana has found work in the Pissy granite mine on the outskirts of Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou.

OUAGADOUGOU, April 6 (Reuters) - Burkina Faso's former president Blaise Compaore was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for complicity in the 1987 murder of his predecessor Thomas Sankara in a coup, a military tribunal ruled on Wednesday.

The charismatic Marxist revolutionary Sankara was gunned down in the West African nation's capital Ouagadougou at the age of 37, four years after he took power in a previous putsch.

Two of Compaore's former top associates, Hyacinthe Kafando and Gilbert Diendere, were also sentenced to life imprisonment.

OUAGADOUGOU, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Burkina Faso is considering a 30-month transitional period to elections following a military coup in January, a source at the presidency said on Wednesday after a commission tasked with making proposals handed its report to the ruling junta.

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, who ousted President Roch Marc Kabore on Jan. 24, appointed the commission two weeks ago to propose a draft charter and roadmap for the transitional period. 

OUAGADOUGOU, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from Monday's explosion at an artisanal gold mining site in southwestern Burkina Faso has risen from 59 to 63, said a judicial source on Tuesday.

A suspect has been arrested, added the source.

The governor of the South-West region, Emmanuel Zongo, also announced in a press release the immediate closure of the site until further notice.

An explosion occurred on Monday on an artisanal gold mining site in Gongombiro, rural commune of Gbomblora in the southwestern province of Poni.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — For Daouda Diallo the threat of death is constant in conflict-riddled Burkina Faso.

One of the country’s most outspoken human rights defenders, the 39-year-old has documented more than 1,000 extrajudicial killings by security forces and jihadis since Islamic extremists launched a violent campaign in the country six years ago.

And that has earned him many enemies.

“We denounce the army, the jihadis and the local defense fighters,” Diallo told The Associated Press. “So all armed actors pose a danger for me.”

OUAGADOUGOU, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was sworn in as the new president of Burkina Faso on Wednesday.

The swearing-in ceremony was broadcast live on Burkina Faso's public television RTB.

Damiba, head of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR), took his oath in front of the Constitutional Council to "preserve, respect, uphold and defend the Constitution, the fundamental act and the laws."

Ouagadougou, Feb 4 (Reuters) - The army officer who seized power in Burkina Faso at the helm of a military coup last week has promised that he will work with the region's main political and economic bloc towards a return to constitutional order.

A delegation from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met earlier this week with coup leader Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba and has called on the junta to rapidly propose a timetable for elections.

OUAGADOUGOU, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The last time rebellious soldiers attempted to overthrow Burkina Faso's government in 2015, Marcel Tankoano was among thousands of protesters who took to the streets to oust the junta. Within days, loyalist forces had restored the president to power.

Last week, Tankoano was on the streets again, this time celebrating the military coup that toppled the country's elected president, Roch Kabore.