The former executive secretary of the UN nuclear test ban monitoring body (CTBTO), Lassina Zerbo, was appointed Prime Minister of Burkina Faso on Friday evening, 48 hours after the resignation of the government of this country plagued by recurrent jihadist attacks.
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"
The President of Faso, President of the Council of Ministers, having regard to the Constitution decrees: Mr. Lassina Zerbo is appointed Prime Minister
", announced the Secretary General of the Government, Stéphane Wenceslas Sanou, on national television. Lassina Zerbo, 58, was head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization from 2013 until August.
He succeeds as Prime Minister of Burkina Faso to Joseph Dabiré, sacked Wednesday evening and who did not resist the growing anger of the population against the executive, accused of being unable to curb the jihadist violence hitting the country.
A new government will be formed in the coming days.
Like its Malian and Nigerian neighbors, Burkina Faso has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist armed groups, affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, which have left at least 2,000 dead and 1.4 million displaced. .
Read also In Burkina Faso, the president stuck between the opposition and terrorism
Attacks targeting civilians and soldiers are increasingly frequent and the vast majority concentrated in the north and east of the country.
Friday evening, before the announcement of the appointment of Lassina Zerbo, President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré called for a "
rally
" to defeat terrorism.
"
All Burkinabè must be part of this fight, because it is the only one which is worth the trouble to be carried out today
", he declared in an address to the nation, on public television.