Africa Business

A Paris court on Wednesday sentenced a former Liberian rebel commander to life in jail for violence against civilians and complicity in crimes against humanity after France’s first trial linked to Liberia’s civil wars.

The criminal court found Kunti Kamara guilty of crimes against civilians between 1993 and 1994, including a teacher whose heart he reportedly ate, and for not preventing soldiers under his command from repeatedly raping two teenage girls.

The 47-year-old defendant betrayed little emotion when the verdict was pronounced.

The allegations against Kamara date back to the early years of the back-to-back conflicts that would ultimately kill 250,000 people in the West African nation between 1989 and 2003.

The fighting was marked by mass murders, rape and mutilations, in many cases by child soldiers conscripted by warlords, with atrocities against civilians common.

Kamara was a regional commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), a rebel group that fought the National Patriotic Front of ex-president Charles Taylor.

– ‘Good news for victims’ –

In Monrovia, Adama Dempster, secretary general of the Civil Society Human Rights Group, hailed “good news for the numerous victims of atrocities during the Liberian civil war”.

“We hope that all those who were perpetrators of savage brutality will have their days in court without exception,” he told AFP.

Siah Tamba, 37, saw her father gunned down during the conflicts.

“Every day when I get up, I pray that one day the killers of my father will also be judged,” she told AFP in the Liberian capital.

The case was brought by the crimes against humanity division of the Paris court after Kamara was arrested in France in 2018.

It was set up in 2012 to try suspected perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide detained on French soil, irrespective of where their alleged crimes were committed.

This is the first case taken by the unit that is not related to the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The prosecution had sought a life sentence against Kamara during the three-week trial, which involved witnesses who came from Liberia.

NGO Civitas Maxima, which took legal action against Kamara in 2018, paid tribute in a statement to the “courage of the victims and witnesses who came to Paris to testify”.

They “further contributed to this extraordinary quest for justice undertaken by Liberian victims who have been forgotten by both their government and the international community”.

Kamara consistently denied the allegations and claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy, with his defence team questioning the trustworthiness of the evidence against him.

In his last words to the court on Wednesday, he said he was innocent and merely a simple soldier.

Prosecutors had also accused Kamara of executing civilians and organising forced marches, describing ULIMO’s control of Lofa county in northwestern Liberia in the 1990s as a “governance by terror”.

Prosecution lawyer Aurelie Belliot told the court of public executions and the distribution of human flesh and intestines used to mark checkpoints.

A truth and reconciliation commission was set up in 2006 to probe crimes committed during the fighting, but its recommendations, published in 2009, have remained largely unimplemented in the name of keeping the peace.

And many warlords who were incriminated are still considered heroes in their communities.

So far only a handful of people have been convicted in Liberia itself for their part in the conflict, and efforts to establish a war crimes court in the country have stalled.

Former Liberian warlord-turned-president Taylor was imprisoned in 2012, but for war crimes committed in neighbouring Sierra Leone, not in his own country, where he also rampaged. 

Other former participants in the Liberian wars have been tried abroad in recent years.

Burkina Faso’s new military leader on Wednesday visited Mali for his first foreign trip since taking power, holding what his Malian counterpart hailed as “fruitful” exchanges on peace and security.

Captain Ibrahim Traore, who seized power in Burkina Faso in a September 30 coup, flew to the Malian capital Bamako for what Mali’s foreign ministry said would be a roughly three-hour “friendship and working visit”.

Traore left Mali for Burkina’s capital Ouagadougou Wednesday evening, an AFP journalist reported.

“With a view to improving the security of our respective populations, (Traore) and I had fruitful exchanges this afternoon on the major challenges that impact the peace and stability of our states,” Mali’s Colonel Assimi Goita, who came to power in an August 2020 putsch, said on Twitter late Wednesday.

He greeted 34-year-old Traore in the afternoon as he dismebarked from the plane at the airport in the capital Bamako.

The two men then headed to a VIP airport lounge for private talks before continuing on to the presidency for further meetings with their respective delegations.

A Burkinabe official had earlier said the main issue discussed would be “the fight against terrorism”, referring to the two countries’ bloody struggle against jihadists.

The two Sahel states rank among the poorest and most volatile nations in the world.

Both leaders came to power at the head of army officers angered by failures to roll back Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

Along with neighbouring Niger, the two countries have suffered thousands of fatalities and more than two million people have fled their homes.

Traore ousted Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who in January had toppled Burkina’s last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Under Goita, Mali began to weave closer ties with the Kremlin, acquiring aircraft to strengthen its beleaguered armed forces and bringing in Russian “trainers”, described by Western countries as Wagner mercenaries.

As this relationship intensified, ties with Paris, Mali’s traditional ally, deteriorated and France became a target of vilification.

Paris this year pulled out the last troops it had deployed in Mali as part of its Barkhane anti-jihadist force in the Sahel.

The latest coup in Burkina has been marked by anti-French protests in which some demonstrators have waved Russian flags and demanded the departure of a contingent of 400 French special forces.

On Sunday, Burkina Faso’s new prime minister hinted that his country may look at stronger connections with Russia, in the light of “the new deal” in security.

The warring sides in Ethiopia announced Wednesday an agreement to silence their guns after two years of devastating conflict that have claimed thousands of lives and left millions needing aid in Africa’s second most populous country.

The surprise deal between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and Tigrayan rebels was unveiled after little over a week of negotiations led by the African Union in South Africa and was hailed by the UN and the US among others.

“We have agreed to permanently silence the guns and end the two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia,” the government and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said in a joint statement after marathon talks.

The breakthrough was announced by the African Union’s mediator, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, almost exactly two years to the day since the war erupted in November 2020.

“Today is the beginning of a new dawn for Ethiopia, for the Horn of Africa and indeed for Africa as a whole,” he said.

“The two parties in the Ethiopian conflict have formally agreed to the cessation of hostilities as well as the systematic, orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament,” Obasanjo said at a briefing in Pretoria.

They also agreed on a “restoration of law and order, restoration of services, unhindered access to humanitarian supplies, protection of civilians… among other areas of agreement”, he added.

It was not immediately clear how the deal would be monitored to ensure it was implemented, and there was no mention by Obasanjo of international and rebel calls for Eritrea’s feared army to withdraw from the battlefield.

– ‘Welcome first step’ –

Diplomatic efforts to bring Abiy’s government and the TPLF to the negotiating table had taken on renewed urgency after combat resumed in late August, torpedoing a five-month truce that had allowed limited amounts of aid into war-stricken Tigray.

The talks were launched on Tuesday last week and were initially scheduled to run until Sunday but were extended.

They were the first formal dialogue between the two sides since the start of the conflict that had raised concerns about the stability of Ethiopia and the volatile Horn of Africa region.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed Obasanjo’s announcement as “a welcome first step” that could “bring some solace” to millions of suffering civilians, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

The United States also described it as an “important step towards peace”, with State Department spokesman Ned Price hoping it would lead to a “durable cessation of hostilities to set the stage for an end to human rights abuses and atrocities”.

The delegations in Pretoria said it was now up to both sides to honour the agreement, while Abiy himself vowed a “strong” commitment to its implementation.

The head of the government team, Abiy’s national security adviser Redwan Hussein, praised the sides for their “constructive engagement to allow the country to put this tragic period of conflict behind us”.

Tigrayan delegation chief Getachew Reda said they were ready to “implement and expedite this agreement”, adding: “In order to address the pains of our people, we have made concessions because we have to build trust.”

– Dire shortages –

The war has forced well over two million people from their homes, and according to US estimates killed as many as half a million.

Despite the peace process in Pretoria, intense fighting had continued unabated in Tigray, where government troops backed by the Eritrean army and regional forces waged artillery bombardments and air strikes, capturing a string of towns from the rebels.

The international community had voiced increasing alarm over the combat and the toll among civilians caught in the crossfire.

Asked about Eritrea, South Africa’s former vice president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who was facilitating the negotiations, said only: “These two parties (Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan authorities) are not the only two groups that are relevant for peace to happen in Ethiopia.

“So we are entrusting them with the responsibility of going back home to socialise this agreement… to ensure that many more people embrace this agreement.”

Tigray, a region of six million people, has been under a communications blackout for much of the conflict, lacking basic services and facing dire shortages of food, fuel and medicines.

The conflict erupted on November 4, 2020, when Nobel peace laureate Abiy sent troops into Tigray after accusing the TPLF, the regional ruling party, of attacking federal army camps.

The fighting followed months of seething tensions between Abiy and the TPLF, which had dominated the ruling coalition in Ethiopia for almost three decades before he came to power in 2018.

Senegal’s main opposition leader Ousmane Sonko on Wednesday urged his supporters to remain calm on the eve of a court hearing in a rape case against him that has previously sparked deadly riots.

“I solemnly ask everyone to stay quietly at home or to go about their business quietly,” said the 48-year-old politician, who came third in the last presidential election and plans to run again in 2024.

He was accused last year of raping an employee of a beauty salon where he was getting a massage. 

His arrest and indictment in March 2021 led to several days of riots, looting and destruction that left about a dozen dead.

“If we accept to fight, we will do it,” Sonko — who claims he was set up by President Macky Sall’s government to knock his 2024 presidential bid off course — said in a livestreamed address Wednesday. 

“We are not there yet, my fellow citizens.”

Sonko, who is expected in court at noon (GMT and local) Thursday, told his supporters that the summons would be an “ordinary” procedure that he had in fact been “demanding for a very long time”.

“We have wanted it because this system must be definitively dealt with — because it is a plot hatched at the top of the state,” he said.

Earlier Wednesday, members of Sonko’s political coalition expressed their solidarity with him, promising to “stand together” in the face of “any injustice”.

– ‘Tactical game’ –

Sonko claims the president is attempting to set a trap for him and his supporters.

“Don’t go to my house, don’t go to court — we don’t have to fall into Macky Sall’s trap,” he said.

“(Sall) is in a dynamic of creating chaos… We are now in a tactical game; they must not be more intelligent than us.”

Sonko, who was elected mayor of the southern city of Ziguinchor in January, has enjoyed a rapid political rise in part thanks to his popularity with young people — half of Senegal’s population is under 20 years old. 

But critics characterise him as a populist firebrand. He regularly tears into social elites and corruption, slamming the economic and political grip of multinational firms and former colonial power France.

He attempted to contest the July legislative elections, but the candidate list he was named on was invalidated over a technicality.

That led to fresh clashes in June that left several people dead.

Senegal has a general reputation for stability in a region where political turbulence is widespread.

In recent years, several other prominent opponents of the president have seen their political careers cut short by legal cases.

Sall, who was elected in 2012 and again 2019, has remained vague on whether he intends to run for a controversial third term in 2024.

The warring sides in Ethiopia announced Wednesday an agreement to silence their guns after two years of devastating conflict that have claimed thousands of lives and left millions needing aid in Africa’s second most populous country.

The surprise deal between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and Tigrayan rebels was unveiled after little over a week of negotiations led by the African Union in South Africa.

“We have agreed to permanently silence the guns and end the two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia,” the government and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said in a joint statement after marathon talks.

The breakthrough was announced by the African Union’s mediator, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, almost exactly two years to the day since the war erupted in November 2020. 

“Today is the beginning of a new dawn for Ethiopia, for the Horn of Africa and indeed for Africa as a whole,” he said.

“The two parties in the Ethiopian conflict have formally agreed to the cessation of hostilities as well as the systematic, orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament,” Obasanjo said at a briefing in Pretoria.

They also agreed on a “restoration of law and order, restoration of services, unhindered access to humanitarian supplies, protection of civilians… among other areas of agreement”, he added.

But, he cautioned: “This moment is not the end of the peace process but the beginning of it. Implementation of the peace agreement signed today is critical.”

It was not immediately clear how the deal would be monitored to ensure it was implemented, and there was no mention by Obasanjo of international and rebel calls for Eritrea’s feared army to withdraw from the battlefield.

– ‘Welcome first step’ –

Diplomatic efforts to bring Abiy’s government and the TPLF to the negotiating table had gathered pace after combat resumed in late August, torpedoing a five-month truce that had allowed limited amounts of aid into war-stricken Tigray.

The negotiations were launched on Tuesday last week and were initially scheduled to run until Sunday but were extended.

They were the first formal dialogue between the two sides since the start of the conflict that had raised concerns about the stability of the country as well as the volatile Horn of Africa region.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed Obasanjo’s announcement.

“It is very much a welcome first step, which we hope can start to bring some solace to the millions of Ethiopian civilians that have really suffered during this conflict,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

The delegations in Pretoria said it was now up to both sides to honour the agreement.

The head of the government team, Abiy’s national security adviser Redwan Hussein, praised the sides for their “constructive engagement to allow the country to put this tragic period of conflict behind us”.

Tigrayan delegation chief Getachew Reda said they were ready to “implement and expedite this agreement”, adding: “In order to address the pains of our people, we have made concessions because we have to build trust.”

– Dire shortages –

Despite the peace process in Pretoria, intense fighting had continued unabated in Tigray, where government troops backed by the Eritrean army and regional forces waged artillery bombardments and air strikes, capturing a string of towns from the rebels.

The international community had voiced increasing alarm over the combat and the toll among civilians caught in the crossfire.

Asked about Eritrea, South Africa’s former vice president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who was facilitating the negotiations, said only: “These two parties (Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan authorities) are not the only two groups that are relevant for peace to happen in Ethiopia.

“So we are entrusting them with the responsibility of going back home to socialise this agreement… to ensure that many more people embrace this agreement.”

Tigray, a region of six million people, has been under a communications blackout for much of the conflict, lacking basic services and facing dire shortages of food, fuel and medicines.

The conflict erupted on November 4, 2020, when Nobel peace laureate Abiy sent troops into Tigray after accusing the TPLF, the regional ruling party, of attacking federal army camps.

The fighting followed months of seething tensions between Abiy and the TPLF, which had dominated the ruling coalition in Ethiopia for almost three decades before he came to power in 2018.

The war has forced well over two million people from their homes, and according to US estimates killed as many as half a million.

Warring sides in the brutal two-year conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray on Wednesday declared they had set the goal of “permanently” ending the fighting, agreeing to a truce backed by a programme of disarmament and integration of rebels.

“We have agreed to permanently silence the guns and end the two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia,” the Ethiopian government and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said in a joint statement after marathon talks in South Africa.

The breakthrough was announced by the African Union’s mediator, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. 

“The two parties in the Ethiopian conflict have formally agreed to the cessation of hostilities as well as the systematic, orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament,” he said at a press conference in Pretoria.

The agreement marked a new “dawn” for Ethiopia, he said. 

The joint statement said the two sides “concluded a peace agreement” following “intensive negotiations.”

They notably agreed on a programme of “disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration for TPLF combatants, taking into account the security situation on the ground,” it said.

The more than week-long talks marked the first formal dialogue for ending a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and unleashed a humanitarian crisis.

The Tigrayan rebels hailed the deal and said they had made “concessions.”

“We are ready to implement and expedite this agreement,” said the head of their delegation, Getachew Reda.

“In order to address the pains of our people, we have made concessions because we have to build trust.”

“Ultimately, the fact that we have reached a point where we have now signed an agreement speaks volumes about the readiness on the part of the two sides to lay the past behind them to chart a new path of peace,” said Getachew. 

The conflict erupted on November 4, 2020, when Addis Ababa sent troops into Tigray after accusing the TPLF, the regional ruling party, of attacking federal army camps.

According to US estimates, as many as half a million people have died in the war.

The conflict also triggered a humanitarian crisis, forcing well over two million people from their homes.

“We’ve agreed that the government of Ethiopia will further enhance its collaboration with humanitarian agencies to continue expediting aid towards those in need of assistance,” the joint statement said.

Burkina Faso’s new military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, on Wednesday arrived in the Malian capital Bamako for his first foreign trip since taking power on September 30, an AFP journalist reported.

The head of Mali’s junta, Colonel Assimi Goita, who came to power in a putsch in August 2020, greeted 34-year-old Traore as he dismounted the plane at Bamako airport.

The two men then headed to a VIP airport lounge for private talks before continuing on to the presidency for further meetings with their respective delegations.

“The main issue will be the fight against terrorism,” a Burkinabe official said, referring to the two countries’ bloody struggle against jihadists.

The Malian foreign ministry said Traore’s “friendship and working visit” was scheduled to last around three hours.

The two Sahel states rank among the poorest and most volatile nations in the world.

Both leaders came to power at the head of army officers angered by failures to roll back Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

Along with neighbouring Niger, the two countries have suffered thousands of fatalities and more than two million people have fled their homes.

Traore ousted Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who in January had toppled Burkina’s last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Under Goita, Mali began to weave closer ties with the Kremlin, acquiring aircraft to strengthen its beleaguered armed forces and bringing in Russian “trainers”, described by Western countries as Wagner mercenaries.

As this relationship intensified, ties with Paris, Mali’s traditional ally, deteriorated and France became a target of vilification.

Paris this year pulled out the last troops it had deployed in Mali under its Barkhane anti-jihadist force in the Sahel.

The latest coup in Burkina has been marked by anti-French protests in which some demonstrators have waved Russian flags and demanded the departure of a contingent of 400 French special forces.

On Sunday, Burkina Faso’s new prime minister hinted that his country may look at stronger connections with Russia, in the light of “the new deal” in security.

Maasai pastoralists have filed a court case against Tanzania’s government, challenging its decision to cordon off land for wildlife protection, a lawyer representing the community said Wednesday.

The nomadic community in Loliondo in the northern district of Ngorongoro has accused the government of trying to force them off their ancestral land in order to organise safaris and hunting expeditions.

But the government has rejected the accusations, claiming it wants to “protect” 1,500 square kilometres (580 square miles) of the area from human activity.

“The case is crucial for the Loliondo residents,” lawyer Yonas Masiaya told AFP in a message.

“The area is strictly prohibited to graze or enter and the residents of the area were depending (on) it for grazing, water, rituals and herbs,” he said, adding that the community wants judges to nullify the government’s decision.

The case was filed in September, he said, weeks before a regional court ruled in favour of the government in a separate petition.

The Arusha-based East African Court of Justice upheld the government’s decision in a verdict announced on September 30, saying that no compensation was due to the pastoralists who have complained of being evicted from their land.

Tensions have soared in recent months with violent clashes breaking out in June in Loliondo between police and Maasai demonstrators.

More than two dozen Maasai protesters were charged with murder over the death of a policeman in the clashes.

Tanzania has historically allowed indigenous communities such as the Maasai to live within some national parks, including the Ngorongoro conservation area, a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

But the authorities say their growing population is encroaching on wildlife habitat and began moving the pastoralists out of Ngorongoro in June, calling it a voluntary relocation.

The move has sparked concern, with a team of UN-appointed independent rights experts warning in June that “it could jeopardise the Maasai’s physical and cultural survival.”

Since 1959, the number of humans living in Ngorongoro has shot up from 8,000 to more than 100,000.

As climate change leads to prolonged droughts and low crop yields, pressure on the pastoralists has increased, forcing them into conflict with wildlife over access to food and water.

In 2009, thousands of Maasai families were moved out of Loliondo to allow an Emirati safari company, Otterlo Business Corporation, to organise hunting expeditions there.

The government cancelled that deal in 2017, following allegations of corruption.

Kenya’s President William Ruto announced Wednesday that Nairobi was deploying troops to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in a joint regional operation against a rebel offensive.

The mineral-rich DRC is struggling to contain dozens of armed groups whose recent advances in the country’s east have revived old animosities and led to a surge in tensions with neighbouring Rwanda.

Leaders of the seven-nation East African Community (EAC) bloc, in which Kenya is the regional heavyweight, agreed in April to establish a joint force to help restore security in the DRC.

Speaking at a ceremony in Nairobi to flag off the deployment, Ruto said the troops were “on a mission to protect humanity”.

“The destiny of DRC is intertwined with ours,” he added, without giving details of the deployment schedule.

“We will not allow any armed groups, criminals and terrorists to deny us our shared prosperity. We owe our brotherly duty to DRC until the job is done.”

Kenya will command the force, which will also include soldiers from Burundi, South Sudan and Uganda.

A Rwandan contingent will be deployed along the border, after Kinshasa objected to Kigali’s participation in any operations within the DRC.

The Kenyan contingent will be deployed for an initial period of six months and will set up its command base in Goma, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) said. 

– ‘Military escalation’ –

Military officials in Nairobi declined to reveal the number of Kenyan soldiers involved, citing “obvious security reasons”.

But the KDF said “close to a thousand” soldiers had undertaken the mandatory pre-deployment training.

A UN force, known by its French acronym of MONUSCO, is already operating in the DRC. 

Burundi and Uganda also sent troops to the DRC earlier at the invitation of the Congolese government.

The M23 rebels, a mostly Congolese group, resumed fighting in late 2021 after lying dormant for years, accusing the DRC government of failing to honour an agreement to integrate its fighters into the army.

Fresh advances by the militia across North Kivu province last month prompted the UN peacekeeping mission there to increase its alert level and boost support for the Congolese army.

The M23’s resurgence has had resounding repercussions for relations in central Africa.

The DRC accuses Rwanda of backing the militia, claims denied by Kigali.

On Saturday, Kinshasa decided to expel Rwanda’s ambassador. In turn, Kigali accused its neighbour of being “on the path of continued military escalation”.

As tensions have spiked, DRC residents have staged angry protests against M23 and Kigali, with hundreds taking to the streets in South Kivu province on Wednesday and chanting: “Let the Rwandans go home!”

The demonstration followed a protest on Monday in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, where thousands marched through the city demanding weapons to fight Rwanda.

– Calls for ceasefire –

The increase in violence has alarmed the international community, with the African Union appealing for a ceasefire.

Current EAC chairman, Burundi’s President Evariste Ndayishimiye, said on Tuesday he held talks with his regional counterparts on “managing the security crisis” and agreed to hold a summit at a date yet to be announced.

The EAC comprises Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

M23 first leapt to prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured Goma before a joint Congolese-UN offensive drove it out.

The militia is one of scores of armed groups in eastern DRC, many of them a legacy of two regional wars that flared late last century.

The groups include the FDLR, a Rwandan Hutu rebel group based in the DRC which Kigali views as a threat and has regularly accused Kinshasa of supporting.

While Rwanda has denied backing M23, a report by independent UN experts seen by AFP in August found that Kigali had provided direct support to the militia.

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — which the Islamic State group claims as its Central African offshoot — is also active in the region and is accused of slaughtering thousands of Congolese civilians and carrying out bombings in neighbouring Uganda.  

Burkina Faso’s new military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, was heading to Mali on Wednesday for his first foreign trip since taking power on September 30, officials in both countries said.

The 34-year-old junta chief will meet his Malian counterpart, Assimi Goita, who came to power in a putsch in August 2020, they said.

“The main issue will be the fight against terrorism,” a Burkinabe official said, referring to the two countries’ bloody struggle against jihadists.

The Malian foreign ministry said Traore’s “friendship and working visit” in the capital Bamako was scheduled to last around three hours.

The two Sahel states rank among the poorest and most volatile nations in the world.

Both leaders came to power at the head of army officers angered by failures to roll back Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

Along with neighbouring Niger, the two countries have suffered thousands of fatalities and more than two million people have fled their homes.

Traore ousted Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who in January had toppled Burkina’s last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Under Goita, Mali began to weave closer ties with the Kremlin, acquiring aircraft to strengthen its beleaguered armed forces and bringing in Russian “trainers”, described by Western countries as Wagner mercenaries.

As this relationship intensified, ties with Paris, Mali’s traditional ally, deteriorated and France became a target of vilification.

Paris this year pulled out the last troops it had deployed in Mali under its Barkhane anti-jihadist force in the Sahel.

The latest coup in Burkina has been marked by anti-French protests in which some demonstrators have waved Russian flags and demanded the departure of a contingent of 400 French special forces.

On Sunday, the new prime minister, Apollinaire Kyelem de Tembela, hinted that Burkina may look at stronger connections with Russia, in the light of “the new deal” in security.