Captain Ibrahim Traore was appointed as president of Burkina Faso on Wednesday, according to an official statement, after the West African country’s second coup in less than nine months.
The impoverished Sahel nation plunged into renewed turmoil at the weekend when Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba — who had seized power in January — was toppled by newly emerged rival Traore, leading a faction of disgruntled junior officers.
It was the latest putsch in the Sahel region much of which, like Burkina Faso, is battling a growing Islamist insurgency.
Traore has been appointed as “Head of State, Supreme Head of the Armed Forces”, according to the official statement read out on national television by spokesman for the ruling junta Captain Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho.
The statement said that Traore would now be the “guarantor of national independence, territorial integrity… and continuity of the State.”
Damiba fled to Togo following the two-day standoff, which was defused by religious and community leaders.
Burkina is struggling with a seven-year-old jihadist campaign that has claimed thousands of lives, forced nearly two million people to flee their homes and left more than a third of the country outside government control.
Swelling anger within the armed forces prompted Damiba’s coup against the elected president in January.
Appointing himself transitional head of state, Damiba had vowed to make security the country’s top priority — but after a brief lull the attacks revived, claiming hundreds of lives.
Just a week ago, 34-year-old Ibrahim Traore was an unknown, even in his native Burkina Faso.
But in the space of a weekend, he catapulted himself from army captain to the world’s youngest leader — an ascent that has stoked hopes but also fears for a poor and chronically troubled country.
Traore, at the head of a core of disgruntled junior officers, ousted Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had seized power just in January.
The motive for the latest coup — as in January — was anger at failures to stem a seven-year jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and driven nearly two million people from their homes.
On Wednesday, Traore was declared president and “guarantor of national independence, territorial integrity… and continuity of the State.”
At that lofty moment, Traore became the world’s youngest leader, wresting the title from Chilean President Gabriel Boric, a whole two years older.
Traore’s previously unknown face is now plastered on portraits around the capital Ouagadougou.
His photo is even on sale in the main market, alongside portraits of Burkina’s revered assassinated radical leader, Thomas Sankara, and of Jesus.
