According to a government source who spoke to AFP, the shots heard early on Tuesday in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, were “warning shots” sparked by the presence of someone inside the “security perimeter” of an airbase.
The insider explained, “These were warning shots after a person found himself in the security perimeter of the airbase area.” In the center of the Burkinabe city, loud gunfire started to be heard at 12:45 a.m. and stopped around 40 minutes later.
The government source continued, “The security authorities will determine on the circumstance and the reasons for such carelessness. After the shots, a security source told AFP that “the situation” was “under control,” adding that “it’s an unfortunate incident limited to the air base,” without providing any other information.
The AFP journalist observed that after being briefly halted by the gunshot, traffic had meekly resumed.
Heavy gunfire broke out 10 months after a coup, the second in less than a year to be recorded in this country beset by jihadist violence, and six days after the overthrow of elected President Mohamed Bazoum in neighboring Niger.
Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the leader of the coup that toppled Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba on September 30, 2022, and President-elect Roch Marc Christian Kaboré on January 24, 2022, both took place in Ouagadougou.
With each coup, the incapacity to combat the jihadist organizations associated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, who have intensified their attacks on Burkina Faso since 2015, has been brought to light.
According to the most recent estimates from the international NGO Armed Conflict Location Action (Acled), jihadist violence has resulted in more than 16,000 civilian and military deaths in eight years, including more than 5,000 since the beginning of 2023. Around two million people were also displaced as a result of this violence.
The most recent coup on July 26 in Niger was the third following coups in Mali and Burkina Faso in 2020, 2021, and 2022. The Sahel area is rife with poverty and Islamist warfare.
Mali and Burkina have successfully persuaded France to withdraw its troops from their countries, and they have contacted other allies, particularly Russia, who is taking advantage of the French withdrawal to incite hatred among a segment of the populace there.