ECOWAS leaders have announced the suspension of Burkina Faso from the regional bloc following recent military takeover.
The West African leaders held a virtual summit on Friday and expressed disappointment at the trend of military coup.
ECOWAS will now be sending a delegation to the capital Ouagadougou, to help restore democracy to the country.
It was not immediately clear what other sanctions ECOWAS might impose in the coming weeks.
ECOWAS in the past imposed a range of sanctions on Mali and Guinea over similar military takeovers, including asset freezes against junta leaders and their families, border closures and suspensions of financial transactions.
Meanwhile Burkina Faso’s new military leader Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba said on Thursday that the country would only return to constitutional order when conditions are right.
Damiba spoke for the first time on national television since leading a mutiny that ousted President Roch Marc Kabore on Monday.
“When the conditions are right, according to the deadline that our people will define in all sovereignty, I commit to a return to a normal constitutional order,” Damiba said.
The coup leaders from the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR), launched a mutiny on Sunday night, and removed Kabore on Monday, blaming him for failing to contain worsening violence by Islamist militants.
Damiba has now promised farmers and herders and people across the country affected by violence from militants that he would take back control of those zones.
Source: Africafeeds.com
