Africa Business

Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey scored his first Premier League goal since March for Arsenal, whose 3-1 derby win over Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend kept them top of the table.   

In another clash between London clubs, retired Gabon forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang bagged his maiden goal for new club Chelsea in a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace.

Usually prolific Mohamed Salah continues to struggle with Liverpool this season. The Egyptian failed to score in a 3-3 draw with Brighton — he has netted just two league goals in seven matches. 

Here, AFP Sport highlights African headline-makers in the major European leagues:

ENGLAND

THOMAS PARTEY (Arsenal)

He opened the scoring as the leaders enjoyed an impressive win against north London rivals Tottenham. Partey struck at the Emirates Stadium in the 20th minute with a superb first-time curler into the top corner from 25 yards. Mikel Arteta’s side went on to secure their seventh win from eight league games this season to retain a one point lead over Manchester City.

PIERRE-EMERICK AUBAMEYANG (Chelsea)

The Gabon striker scored his first goal for Chelsea following his move from Barcelona as the Blues won at Crystal Palace. Former Arsenal star Aubameyang had gone without a goal in his first two games since returning to England on transfer deadline day. But the 33-year-old ended his wait to get on the scoresheet in the 38th minute at Selhurst Park, spinning to fire home.

SPAIN

INAKI WILLIAMS (Athletic Bilbao)

Fresh from making his international debut for Ghana, Williams put up a barnstorming performance to help Bilbao romp to a 4-0 win over Almeria. Williams opened the scoring in the 10th minute with a glancing header from a cross provided by his brother Nico. He had another well-taken goal ruled out for a marginal offside, and then set up Nico for the third goal.

ITALY

ADEMOLA LOOKMAN (Atalanta)

Nigeria forward Lookman made sure that Atalanta stayed level on points with Serie A leaders Napoli with the only goal in a 1-0 win over Fiorentina. London-born Lookman netted his second goal of the campaign and his first since the opening weekend of the season when he tapped in the winner from Luis Muriel’s low cross.

FODE BALLO-TOURE (AC Milan)

Left-back Ballo-Toure has been made a fringe player at AC Milan by Theo Hernandez, but the Senegal international had a huge hand in their thrilling 3-1 win at Empoli. The 25-year-old wept with joy after putting Milan back ahead with his first league goal in the fourth minute of stoppage time, just two minutes after Nedim Bajrami curled home what he thought was the free-kick which would earn Empoli a point.

Authorities in Ethiopia’s rebel-held Tigray region said they had withdrawn fighters from occupied parts of a neighbouring region to counter a major offensive unfolding to the north. 

Pro-government forces and rebels led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) resumed fighting in late August after a five-month truce, dimming hopes of peacefully settling nearly two years of war.

The latest upsurge has drawn Eritrean troops back onto the battlefield in support of Ethiopia’s federal and regional forces, which are fighting the TPLF on multiple fronts in the country’s north.

Tigrayan authorities said late Sunday that a redeployment of fighters from occupied parts of the Amhara region to the south of Tigray was necessary to counter intensifying combat to the north.

“So because of this, on the southern front, we have withdrawn from the areas of Amhara region we entered,” Tigray’s regional authorities said in a statement.

The withdrawal had been under way for three days and could be reversed if the front came under attack again, they added.

An Amhara government official in that part of the region told AFP that TPLF rebels had withdrawn from some towns, and reported some localised fighting.

AFP was not able to independently verify claims of battlefield gains or troop movements. 

Access to northern Ethiopia is severely restricted and Tigray has been under a communications blackout for more than a year.

The involvement of Eritrea has provoked strong condemnation from Western nations pushing for a peaceful resolution to the war in Africa’s second-most populous country.

Eritrean troops supported Ethiopian forces in the early stages of the war, which erupted in November 2020 when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent soldiers into Tigray to unseat the TPLF.

The TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition for decades before Abiy took power in 2018, and is a historic enemy of Eritrea and its iron-fisted ruler Isaias Afwerki.

In September, authorities in the closed-off nation issued a general call for mobilisation of its armed forces.

The war has claimed untold lives and spurred a humanitarian crisis, and all sides to the conflict have been accused of grave abuses against civilians.

The Somali government announced on Monday a top Al-Shabaab militant, who had a $3.0-million US bounty on his head, had been killed in a joint air strike in southern Somalia.

The drone strike on October 1, launched by the Somali army and international security partners, killed Abdullahi Yare near the coastal town of Haramka, the ministry of information said in a statement dated Sunday but posted online on Monday.

“This leader… was the head preacher of the group and one of the most notorious members of the Shabab group,” it said.

“He was former head of the Shura council and the group’s director for finances,” the ministry said, referring to a powerful consultation body within Al-Shabaab.

A co-founder of the Al-Qaeda-linked group, Yare was believed to be next in line to take over the leadership of the movement from its ailing chief Ahmed Diriye, according to the ministry.

“His elimination is like a thorn removed from Somalia as a nation,” the ministry said.

Yare was one of seven leaders named by the United States on its most-wanted list in 2012. Washington offered three million dollars for his capture.

The announcement of the strike comes weeks after Somalia’s recently elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud vowed to stage all-out war on the jihadists, following a string of deadly attacks. They include a 30-hour hotel siege in the capital, Mogadishu, that killed 21 people.

Mohamud last month urged citizens to stay away from areas controlled by Al-Shabaab as he vowed to ratchet up offensives against the militants.

US forces have in the past partnered with African Union soldiers and Somali troops in counterterrorism operations, and have conducted frequent raids and drone strikes on Al-Shabaab training camps throughout Somalia.

Last month, the US military said it had killed 27 jihadist fighters in an air strike near Bulobarde, the main town on the road linking Mogadishu to Beledweyne, a key city on the border with Ethiopia.

It said the air strike was carried out “at the request” of the Somali government.

Al-Shabaab, which espouses a strict version of sharia or Islamic law, has waged a bloody insurrection against the Mogadishu government for 15 years and remains a potent force despite an African Union operation against the group.

Its fighters were ousted from the capital in 2011 but continue to stage attacks on military, government and civilian targets.

The group last week claimed responsibility for a bomb blast that killed a top Somali police officer near the Al-Shabaab-controlled village of Bursa, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Mogadishu. 

Burkina Faso’s junta leader agreed to step down on Sunday, religious and community leaders said, two days after army officers announced his ouster in a coup that sparked internal unrest and international condemnation.

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba “himself offered his resignation in order to avoid confrontations with serious human and material consequences”, the religious and community leaders said in a statement.

It followed mediation between Damiba and the new self-proclaimed leader, Ibrahim Traore, by the religious and community leaders, they added.

Regional diplomatic sources said Damiba — who himself took power in a January putsch — had fled to Togo’s capital Lome on Sunday following the unstable and impoverished West African nation’s second coup this year.

Traore announced in the evening that he had received the support of army chiefs to “reinvigorate” the anti-jihadist struggle.

In a statement Sunday, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS welcomed that the various players in the Burkinabe drama had accepted “a peaceful settlement of their differences”. An ECOWAS delegation would travel to Ouagadougou Monday, the statement added.

Damiba set “seven conditions” for stepping down, the religious and community leaders said.

These included security guarantees for him and his allies in the military; and that the pledge he had given to West Africa’s regional bloc for a return to civilian rule within two years be respected.

The religious and community leaders — who are very influential in Burkina Faso — said that Traore, 34, had accepted the conditions and called for calm.

– ‘Disinformation campaign’ – 

The putschists lifted an overnight curfew imposed Friday and reopened the country’s borders. It was on Friday that junior military officers announced they had toppled Damiba.

Saturday Damiba had said he had no intention of giving up power, urging the officers to “come to their senses” amid a backdrop of protests.

But a statement issued on Sunday by the pro-Traore military said he would remain in charge “until the swearing-in of the president of Burkina Faso designated by the nation’s active forces”, at an unspecified date.

The officers had accused Damiba of having taken refuge at a military base of former colonial power France to plot a “counter-offensive”, charges he and France denied.

On Sunday, dozens of Traore’s supporters gathered at the French embassy in Ouagadougou.

Security forces fired tear gas from inside the compound to disperse the angry protesters after they set fire to barriers outside and lobbed rocks at the structure, some trying to scale the fence, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.

The French foreign ministry condemned the violence by “hostile demonstrators manipulated by a disinformation campaign against us”.

That incident followed a fire at the embassy on Saturday and a blaze in front of the French Institute in the western city of Bobo-Dioulasso.

A French institute in the capital also sustained major damage, the French foreign ministry said.

– ‘Burkina Faso needs peace’ –

Damiba came to power in the nation of 16 million people in a January coup, accusing elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore of failing to beat back jihadist fighters. 

But the insurgency has raged on and more than 40 percent of Burkina Faso remains outside government control.

Thousands have died and about two million have been displaced by the fighting since 2015, when the insurgency spread to Burkina Faso from neighbouring Mali.

The officers said it was Damiba’s failure to quell the jihadist attacks that had prompted them to act.

Friday’s events sparked a wave of international criticism, including from the United States, the African Union, the European Union and ECOWAS.

“Burkina Faso needs peace, stability and unity to fight terrorist groups and criminal networks operating in parts of the country,” said a statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Jihadist violence has also prompted a series of coups in Mali since 2020 and fuelled instability in neighbouring Niger.

The new self-proclaimed Burkina leaders had said they were willing “to go to other partners ready to help in the fight against terrorism”.

No country was explicitly mentioned but Russia, whose influence is growing in French-speaking Africa including Mali and the Central African Republic, is among the possible partners in question.

A few hours before events unfolded on Friday, hundreds of people had rallied in the capital seeking Damiba’s departure, the end of France’s military presence in the Sahel and military cooperation with Russia.

In the blistering desert of Morocco, the country’s last Berber nomads, the Amazigh, say their ancient lifestyle is under threat as climate change brings ever-more intense droughts.  

“Everything has changed,” said Moha Ouchaali, his wrinkled features framed by a black turban. “I don’t recognise myself anymore in the world of today. Even nature is turning against us.” 

Ouchaali, an Amazigh man in his 50s, has set up an encampment near a dry riverbed in barren hills about 280 kilometres (174 miles) east of Marrakesh. 

Amid the rocky, arid landscape near the village of Amellagou, he and his family have pitched two black woollen tents, lined with old animal fodder bags and fabric scraps.

One is for sleeping and hosting guests, the other serves as a kitchen.

“Water has become hard to find. Temperatures are going up and the drought is so harsh, but we can’t do much,” said Ouchaali.

His tribe, the Ait Aissa Izem, has spent centuries roaming the country to find food for their animals, but their way of life is steadily disappearing.

According to the last census, just 25,000 people in Morocco were nomadic in 2014, down by two-thirds in just a decade.

“We’re exhausted,” Ouchaali’s 45-year-old wife Ida said emotionally.

“Before, we managed to live decently, but all these droughts, more and more intense, make our lives complicated. Without water we can’t do anything.”

– ‘Last nail in coffin’ –

This year has seen Morocco’s worst drought in four decades.

Rainfall is set to decline by 11 percent and average temperatures set to rise by 1.3 percent by 2050, according to forecasts from the Ministry of Agriculture.

“Nomads have always been seen as a barometer of climate change,” said anthropologist Ahmed Skounti.

“If these people, used to living in extreme conditions, can’t resist the intensity of global warming, that means things are bad.”

The drying up of water resources was “the last nail in the coffin for nomads”, he added.

In easier times, the Ait Aissa Izem would pass the summer in the relatively cool mountain valley of Imilchil, before heading to the area around regional capital Errachidia for the winter.

“That’s ancient history,” Ouchaali said, sitting in his tent and taking a sip of sweet Moroccan tea. “Today we go wherever there’s a bit of water left, to try to save the animals.”

Severe water shortages have even pushed some nomads to take the rare step of taking out loans to feed their livestock, their most vital asset.

“I’ve gone into debt to buy food for my animals so they don’t starve to death,” said Ahmed Assni, 37, sitting by a tiny, almost dried-out stream near Amellagou.

Saeed Ouhada said the difficulties had pushed him to find accommodation for his wife and children in Amellagou, while he stays with his parents in a camp on the edge of the town.

“Being a nomad isn’t what it used to be,” he said. “I’ll keep at it because I have to. My parents are old but they refuse to live in a town.” 

Driss Skounti, elected to represent nomads in the region, said the area used to have around 460 tents. Today, they don’t even add up to a tenth of that number.

– ‘Tired of fighting’ –

Some Moroccan nomads have given up their ancient lifestyle altogether — and not just because of the ever-worsening climate.

“I was tired of fighting,” said Haddou Oudach, 67, who settled permanently in Er-Rich in 2010.

“We’ve become outcasts from society. I can’t even imagine what nomads are going through today.”

Moha Haddachi, the head of an association for the Ait Aissa Izem nomads, said social and economic changes were making a nomadic lifestyle ever-more difficult. 

The scarcity of pastures due to land privatisation and agricultural investment also contributes to the difficulties, he said.

“Agricultural investors now dominate the spaces where nomads used to graze their herds.”

Nomads also face hostility from some villagers, angered by those camping in their region despite officially belonging to other provinces.

A law was passed in 2019 to delineate where nomads and sedentary farmers could graze their animals, but “nobody applies it”, Haddachi said.

Former nomad Oudach is despondent about “this era of selfishness where everyone thinks only of themselves”. 

“It wasn’t always like this, we used to be welcomed everywhere we went,” he said.

Embarking on a life of nomadism offers little to young people.

Houda Ouchaali, 19, says she can’t stand watching her parents “suffering and battling just to survive”.

“The new generation wants to turn the page on nomadism,” she said.

She now lives with an uncle in Er-Rich and is looking for professional training to allow her to “build a future” and escape the “stigmatising gaze that city people often have for nomads”.

Driss Skounti said he had little hope for the future of nomadism.

“Nomadic life has an identity and a tradition steeped in history,” he said, “but is doomed to disappear within 10 years.”

Environment ministers from about 50 countries will gather in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday for a “pre-COP27” climate summit, with rich nations likely to come under pressure to raise spending to combat climate change.

The talks in the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, are informal but meant to allow various countries and green groups to take stock of political positions ahead of COP27 — the United Nations climate gathering of world leaders in Egypt next month.

An opening ceremony will take place in the Congolese parliament building in Kinshasa, followed by discussions on mitigating climate change, and providing funding for countries already damaged by global heating and severe weather events. 

Delegates from about 50 countries are expected to attend the talks, including United States climate envoy John Kerry. 

“The emphasis will certainly be on support from industrialised countries to countries in the south,” a Western diplomat recently told AFP. 

The last UN climate summit, COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021, reaffirmed the goal — agreed in Paris in 2015 — of limiting the rise in the Earth’s average temperature to well below 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C.

That goal may already be beyond reach as the Earth’s temperature is already 1.2C higher than before the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. 

Poorer countries had pushed at Glasgow for a financial mechanism to address losses and damage caused by climate change. 

But wealthier nations — the largest polluters — rejected the call and the participants agreed instead to start a “dialogue” on financial compensation for damages.  

– Climate justice –

Egypt, which is hosting COP27, has made implementing the pledge to curb global heating the priority of the November summit. 

Poorer countries are again likely to remind their richer counterparts of the need to increase financial support. 

The latter have so far failed to deliver on their promise to provide $100 billion a year to help developing countries limit climate change. 

Demands for climate justice were front and centre of a protest in Kinshasa last month, where young Congolese activists chanted slogans and demanded that world leaders take swift action rather than repeat old promises.

The Congolese government is also expected drive home the message that it requires funding to protect its vast rainforests, which act as a carbon sink. 

Around 30 billion tonnes of carbon are stored across the Congo Basin, researchers estimated in a study for Nature in 2016. The figure is roughly equivalent to three years of global emissions.

However, the central African nation in July launched an auction for 30 oil and gas blocs, ignoring warnings from environmentalists that exploiting them could harm ecosystems and release vast amounts of heat-trapping gases. 

One of the poorest countries in the world, the DRC argues that drilling for oil and gas could help diversify its economy and benefit the Congolese people. 

Burkina Faso’s junta leader agreed to step down on Sunday, religious and community leaders said, two days after army officers announced his ouster in a coup that sparked internal unrest and international condemnation.

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba “himself offered his resignation in order to avoid confrontations with serious human and material consequences”, the religious and community leaders said in a statement.

It followed mediation between Damiba and the new self-proclaimed leader, Ibrahim Traore, by the religious and community leaders, they added.

Regional diplomatic sources said Damiba — who himself took power in a January putsch — had fled to Togo’s capital Lome on Sunday following the unstable and impoverished West African nation’s second coup this year.

Traore announced in the evening that he had received the support of army chiefs to “reinvigorate” the anti-jihadist struggle.

In a statement Sunday, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS welcomed that the various players in the Burkinabe drama had accepted “a peaceful settlement of their differences”. An ECOWAS delegation would travel to Ouagadougou Monday, the statement added.

Damiba set “seven conditions” for stepping down, the religious and community leaders said.

These included security guarantees for him and his allies in the military; and that the pledge he had given to West Africa’s regional bloc for a return to civilian rule within two years be respected.

The religious and community leaders — who are very influential in Burkina Faso — said that Traore, 34, had accepted the conditions and called for calm.

– ‘Disinformation campaign’ – 

The putschists lifted an overnight curfew imposed Friday and reopened the country’s borders. It was on Friday that junior military officers announced they had toppled Damiba.

Kate Saturday Damiba had said he had no intention of giving up power, urging the officers to “come to their senses” amid a backdrop of protests.

But a statement issued on Sunday by the pro-Traore military said he would remain in charge “until the swearing-in of the president of Burkina Faso designated by the nation’s active forces”, at an unspecified date.

The officers had accused Damiba of having taken refuge at a military base of former colonial power France to plot a “counter-offensive”, charges he and France denied.

On Sunday, dozens of Traore’s supporters gathered at the French embassy in Ouagadougou.

Security forces fired tear gas from inside the compound to disperse the angry protesters after they set fire to barriers outside and lobbed rocks at the structure, some trying to scale the fence, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.

The French foreign ministry condemned the violence by “hostile demonstrators manipulated by a disinformation campaign against us”.

That incident followed a fire at the embassy on Saturday and a blaze in front of the French Institute in the western city of Bobo-Dioulasso.

A French institute in the capital also sustained major damage, the French foreign ministry said.

– ‘Burkina Faso needs peace’ –

Damiba came to power in the nation of 16 million people in a January coup, accusing elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore of failing to beat back jihadist fighters. 

But the insurgency has raged on and more than 40 percent of Burkina Faso remains outside government control.

Thousands have died and about two million have been displaced by the fighting since 2015, when the insurgency spread to Burkina Faso from neighbouring Mali.

The officers said it was Damiba’s failure to quell the jihadist attacks that had prompted them to act.

Friday’s events sparked a wave of international criticism, including from the United States, the African Union, the European Union and ECOWAS.

“Burkina Faso needs peace, stability and unity to fight terrorist groups and criminal networks operating in parts of the country,” said a statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Jihadist violence has also prompted a series of coups in Mali since 2020 and fuelled instability in neighbouring Niger.

The new self-proclaimed Burkina leaders had said they were willing “to go to other partners ready to help in the fight against terrorism”.

No country was explicitly mentioned but Russia, whose influence is growing in French-speaking Africa including Mali and the Central African Republic, is among the possible partners in question.

A few hours before events unfolded on Friday, hundreds of people had rallied in the capital seeking Damiba’s departure, the end of France’s military presence in the Sahel and military cooperation with Russia.

Burkina Faso’s junta leader Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba agreed to step down Sunday, religious and community leaders said, two days after military officers announced his removal from power, sparking unrest in the West African country and international condemnation.

Damiba “himself offered his resignation in order to avoid confrontations with serious human and material consequences”, the religious and community leaders said in a statement.

It followed mediation between the junta chief and the new self-proclaimed leader, Ibrahim Traore, by the religious and community leaders, they added.

They also said that Damiba had set “seven conditions” for stepping down.

These included a guarantee of security for his allies in the military, “a guarantee of his security and rights” and that those taking power must respect the pledge he had given to West Africa’s regional bloc for a return to civilian rule within two years.

The religious and community leaders — who are very influential in Burkina Faso — said that Traore accepted the conditions and “invites the population to exercise calm, restraint and prayer”.

The upheaval began on Friday when junior military officers announced they had toppled Damiba in the second change of leadership to hit the impoverished, restive nation this year.

Damiba — who led a coup in January — had said late Saturday he had no intention of giving up power and urged the officers to “come to their senses”.

Tension has been high in the country where security forces fired tear gas to disperse angry protesters outside the French embassy in the capital Ouagadougou earlier Sunday.

A statement issued on Sunday by the pro-Traore military said he would remain in charge “until the swearing-in of the president of Burkina Faso designated by the nation’s active forces”, at an unspecified date.

– ‘Disinformation campaign’ – 

The officers had accused Damiba of having hidden at a military base of former colonial power France to plot a “counteroffensive”, charges he and France denied.

On Sunday, dozens of Traore’s supporters gathered at the French embassy in Ouagadougou.

Security forces fired tear gas from inside the compound to disperse the protesters after they set fire to barriers outside and lobbed rocks at the structure, with some trying to scale the fence, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.

The French foreign ministry condemned “the violence against our embassy in the strongest terms” by “hostile demonstrators manipulated by a disinformation campaign against us”.

It marked the latest incident against a France-linked building in two days, after a fire at the embassy on Saturday and a blaze in front of the French Institute in the western city of Bobo-Dioulasso. 

A French institute in the capital also sustained major damage, the French foreign ministry said.

The officers said they had acted because Damiba had failed to quell jihadist attacks in the country.

Damiba came to power in the nation of 16 million people in a January coup, accusing elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore of failing to beat back jihadist fighters. 

But the insurgency has raged on and more than 40 percent of Burkina Faso remains outside government control.

Thousands have died and about two million have been displaced by the fighting since 2015, when the insurgency spread to Burkina Faso from neighbouring Mali.

– ‘Burkina Faso needs peace’ –

The events Friday sparked a wave of international criticism, including from the United States, the African Union, the European Union and the regional grouping ECOWAS.

“Burkina Faso needs peace, stability and unity to fight terrorist groups and criminal networks operating in parts of the country,” said a statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Jihadist violence has prompted a series of coups in Mali since 2020 and fuelled instability in neighbouring Niger.

The new self-proclaimed Burkina leaders had said they were willing “to go to other partners ready to help in the fight against terrorism”.

No country was explicitly mentioned but Russia, whose influence is growing in French-speaking Africa including Mali and the Central African Republic, is among the possible partners in question.

A few hours before events unfolded on Friday, hundreds of people had rallied in the capital seeking Damiba’s departure, the end of France’s military presence in the Sahel and military cooperation with Russia.

France has a contingent of military special forces based in Kamboinsin, which is about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Ouagadougou.

Security forces fired tear gas to disperse angry protesters outside the French embassy in Burkina Faso’s capital on Sunday, as unrest simmered in the impoverished, restive West African nation following the claim of a second coup this year.

The latest upheaval began on Friday, when junior military officers announced they had toppled the country’s junta leader, sparking deep concern among world powers.

Late on Saturday, the junta leader, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, said he had no intention of giving up power and urged the officers to “come to their senses”.

His comments came shortly after the army general staff dismissed the coup as an “internal crisis” within the military and said dialogue was “ongoing” to remedy the situation.

In a statement read out on television on Sunday, the officers who claimed the coup said they had lifted a curfew they had imposed and called for a meeting of ministry heads for later in the day.

The officers had accused Damiba of having hidden at a military base of former colonial power France to plot a “counteroffensive”, charges that he and France denied.

On Sunday, dozens of supporters of the new self-proclaimed putsch leader, Ibrahim Traore, gathered at the French embassy in the capital Ouagadougou.

Security forces fired tear gas from inside the compound to disperse the protesters after they set fire to barriers outside and lobbed rocks at the structure, with some trying to scale the fence, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Hundreds of protesters headed to the headquarters of Burkina Faso’s public television, where Traore went in a motorcade to deliver a national address on Sunday.

Some of them were carrying Russian flags and chanted slogans hostile to France and Damiba. Traore supporters were also continuing to occupy several main squares and roads in Ouagadougou, an AFP correspondent saw.

The French foreign ministry condemned “the violence against our embassy in the strongest terms” by “hostile demonstrators manipulated by a disinformation campaign against us”.

It marked the latest incident against a France-linked building in two days, after a fire at the embassy on Saturday and a blaze in front of the French Institute in the western city of Bobo-Dioulasso. 

A French institute in the capital also sustained major damage, the French foreign ministry said.

Traore called for an end to the attacks on Sunday.

An officer, reading a statement on television from Traore, who stood by his side, told the public “to refrain from any act of violence and vandalism”, notably against the French embassy and military base.

The officers said they had carried out their putsch because Damiba had failed to quell jihadist attacks in the country.

Traore said talks with Damiba were ongoing and that order was progressively being restored, although the country’s borders remained shut on Sunday.

Damiba himself came to power in the nation of 16 million people in a January coup, accusing elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore of failing to beat back jihadist fighters. 

But the insurgency has raged on and more than 40 percent of Burkina Faso remains outside government control.

Thousands have died and about two million have been displaced by the fighting since 2015, when the insurgency spread to Burkina Faso from neighbouring Mali.

– ‘Burkina Faso needs peace’ –

The events Friday sparked a wave of international criticism, including from the United States, the African Union, the European Union and the regional grouping ECOWAS.

“Burkina Faso needs peace, stability and unity to fight terrorist groups and criminal networks operating in parts of the country,” said a statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Jihadist violence has also prompted a series of coups in Mali since 2020 and fuelled instability in neighbouring Niger.

The new self-proclaimed Burkina putschists said they were willing “to go to other partners ready to help in the fight against terrorism”.

No country was explicitly mentioned but Russia, whose influence is growing in French-speaking Africa including Mali and the Central African Republic, is among the possible partners in question.

A few hours before events unfolded on Friday, hundreds of people had rallied in the capital seeking Damiba’s departure, the end of France’s military presence in the Sahel and military cooperation with Russia.

France has a contingent of military special forces based in Kamboinsin, which is about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Ouagadougou.

Security forces fired tear gas to disperse angry protesters outside the French embassy in Burkina Faso’s capital on Sunday, as unrest simmered in the impoverished, restive West African nation following the claim of a second coup this year.

The latest unrest began on Friday, when junior military officers announced they had toppled the country’s junta leader, sparking deep concern among world powers over the latest putsch to hit the Sahel region battling a growing Islamist insurgency.

Late on Saturday, the junta leader, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, said he had no intention of giving up power and urged the officers to “come to their senses”.

His comments came shortly after the army general staff dismissed the coup as an “internal crisis” within the military and said dialogue was “ongoing” to remedy the situation.

The capital remained tense overnight, with demonstrators gathering on the main roads of Ouagadougou as a helicopter hovered above.

In a statement read out on television on Sunday, the officers who claimed the coup said they had lifted a curfew they had imposed and called for a meeting of ministry heads for later in the day.

The officers had accused Damiba of having hidden at a military base of former colonial power France to plot a “counteroffensive,” charges that he and France denied.

On Sunday, dozens of supporters of the new self-proclaimed putsch leader, Ibrahim Traore, gathered at the French embassy in the capital.

Security forces fired tear gas from inside the compound to disperse the protesters after they set fire to barriers outside and lobbed rocks at the structure, with some trying to scale the fence, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The French foreign ministry condemned “the violence against our embassy in the strongest terms” by “hostile demonstrators manipulated by a disinformation campaign against us.”

It marked the latest incident against a France-linked building in two days, after a fire at the embassy on Saturday and a blaze in front of the French Institute in the western city of Bobo-Dioulasso. A French institute in the capital also sustained major damage, the foreign ministry said.

Traore called for an end to the attacks on Sunday.

“Things are progressively returning to order, so we urge you to freely go about your business and to refrain from any act of violence and vandalism… notably those that could be perpetrated against the French embassy and the French military base,” an officer said, reading a statement on television from Traore, who stood by his side.

The officers said they had carried out their putsch because Damiba had failed to quell jihadist attacks in the country.

Damiba himself came to power in a coup in January. He installed himself as leader of the country’s 16 million people after accusing elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore of failing to beat back jihadist fighters. But the insurgency has raged on.

More than 40 percent of Burkina Faso remains outside government control.

Thousands have died and about two million have been displaced by the fighting since 2015, when the insurgency spread to Burkina Faso from Mali.

– ‘Burkina Faso needs peace’ –

Friday’s coup claim sparked a wave of international criticism, including from the United States, the African Union, the European Union and the regional grouping ECOWAS.

“Burkina Faso needs peace, stability and unity to fight terrorist groups and criminal networks operating in parts of the country,” said a statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Jihadist violence has also prompted a series of coups in Mali, Guinea and Chad since 2020.

The new Burkina putschists said they were willing “to go to other partners ready to help in the fight against terrorism”.

No country was explicitly mentioned but Russia, whose influence is growing in French-speaking Africa, is among the possible partners in question.

A few hours before the coup on Friday, hundreds of people had rallied in the capital seeking Damiba’s departure, the end of France’s military presence in the Sahel and military cooperation with Russia.

France has a contingent of military special forces based in Kamboinsin, which is about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Ouagadougou.