Burkina Faso experienced its second coup in eight months on Friday.
Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who came to power in a putsch at the end of January, was in turn dismissed from his post by soldiers.
After a day peppered with shooting in the district of the presidency in Ouagadougou, about fifteen soldiers in fatigues and for some hooded spoke, shortly before 8 p.m. (10 p.m. in metropolitan France) on the plateau of the national radio and television.
"Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba is removed from his position as president of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration" (MPSR, the ruling body of the junta), the military said in a statement read by a captain.
Damiba's fate remained unknown Friday night.
The new strongman of the country, designated president of the MPSR, is now captain Ibrahim Traoré, he added.
The putschists also announced the closure of the country's land and air borders from midnight, as well as the suspension of the Constitution and the dissolution of the government and the Transitional Legislative Assembly.
A curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. is also in place.
“Our common initial ideal has been betrayed”
The soldiers invoke "the continuous deterioration of the security situation" in the country.
“We have decided to take our responsibilities, driven by a single ideal, the restoration of the security and integrity of our territory,” they continued.
“Our initial common ideal was betrayed by our leader in whom we had placed all our trust.
Far from liberating the occupied territories, the once peaceful areas have come under terrorist control,” they said.
When he came to power on January 24, also in a statement read by armed men on television, Damiba had promised to make security his priority, in this country undermined for years by bloody jihadist attacks.
But these have multiplied in recent months.
Friday was very tense in the Burkinabe capital, shots having been heard before dawn in the district housing the presidency and the headquarters of the junta, according to several witnesses, then again at the start of the afternoon.
Several axes of the city were blocked all day by soldiers posted on the main crossroads of the city, in particular in front of the headquarters of the national television.
Friday evening, shortly before the television announcement, a large military force was deployed in certain districts of the capital.
During the day, government spokesman Lionel Bilgo had mentioned "a military crisis" on "claims related to bonuses".
In the afternoon, several hundred people, some of whom were waving Russian flags, gathered in the large Place de la Nation in Ouagadougou to demand military cooperation with Russia, reject the French military presence in the Sahel and demand the departure of Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba.
Thousands dead in jihadist attacks
Moscow's influence has been growing in several French-speaking African countries in recent years and it is not uncommon to see Russian flags in such demonstrations.
The French Foreign Ministry has asked its nationals in Ouagadougou, estimated at between 4,000 and 5,000, to stay at home.
The coup led in January by Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba overthrew elected President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, already unpopular in the face of rising jihadist attacks.
But in recent months, deadly attacks, affecting dozens of civilians and soldiers, have multiplied in the north and east, where cities are now subject to a blockade by jihadists, who blow up bridges with dynamite and attack supply convoys circulating in the area.
Two of these convoys were attacked in September, each time with a heavy toll.
Thirty-five civilians, including many children, died when an improvised device exploded on September 5.
And on Monday, 11 soldiers were killed and 50 civilians missing in the attack on their convoy.
On September 13, Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba dismissed his Minister of Defense to assume this role himself.
Other attacks have particularly marked public opinion, such as the massacre of Seytenga (north) in June, during which 86 civilians were killed.
Since 2015, recurrent attacks by armed movements affiliated with the jihadists of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, mainly in the north and east of the country, have claimed thousands of lives and caused the displacement of some two million people. .