Burkina Faso junta chief dissolves government

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast: Burkina Faso’s ruling military leader on Friday dismissed the country’s prime minister and dissolved the government, according to a presidential decree transmitted to AFP.

The sacked premier had served at the head of three successive governments, surviving each reshuffle.

No reason was given for the dismissal of Apollinaire Joachim Kyelem de Tambela, who was named as premier in October 2022 after the coup that brought Captain Ibrahim Traore to power.

“The prime minister’s official functions are terminated,” said the decree, adding that members of the dissolved government would “carry out ongoing business until the formation of a new government”.

The west African country was plunged into instability by a January 2022 coup in which Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba seized power.

Little more than eight months later, Damiba himself was overthrown by Traore, 36, who now heads the junta regime.

Damiba, who ousted elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore, is currently in exile in neighbouring Togo.

Russia ‘better suited’ ally

The junta has made the return of national sovereignty one of its priorities and regularly hits out against Western powers.

Burkina Faso has allied with fellow Sahel nations Mali and Niger, which are also led by military juntas following a string of coups since 2020.

The three nations joined together last September under the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), after severing ties with former colonial ruler France and pivoting towards Russia.

Burkina Faso was a French colony for the first half of the 20th century, and relations have soured with Paris following the 2022 coup.

Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore last month said Burkina Faso’s cooperation with Russia “better suited” his country than France.

Along with Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso announced in January they were turning their backs on the Economic Community of West African States — ECOWAS — an organisation they accused of being manipulated by Paris.

The three neighbours are all battling jihadist violence that erupted in northern Mali in 2012 and spread to Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.

In Burkina Faso, about two million people have been forced to flee their homes by the conflict, which has killed more than 26,000 people since 2015, including soldiers and civilians, according to monitoring group ACLED.

Moscow has sent military instructors there — as well as to several other African countries — to help in the fight against Islamist violence.