Burkina Faso's president detained amid unrest

Burkina Faso's President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has been detained in the capital, Ouagadougou, by mutinying soldiers, security sources and soldiers in the country reported on Monday.

The news was confirmed by DW's West Africa correspondent Amaka Okoye, who said the detention of the president appeared to have occurred amid some violence.

"There definitely must have been a struggle, because there were armored vehicles ... from the presidency that were shot at," she said.

She also said that it remained unclear who was in control of the country and that the situation was chaotic. Mutinous soldiers were reported to have surrounded the state-run news TV channel RTB.

A statement from the mutinous soldiers to be released on Monday might bring more clarity, she said.

Kabore appeals to troops on Twitter

President Kabore took to Twitter later on Monday, appealing to soldiers who had taken up arms to negotiate. 

"Our nation is living through difficult times. We must in this moment safeguard our democratic achievements. I invite those who have taken up arms to abandon them in the superior interest of the nation. It is by dialogue and by listening that we must solve our differences." Kabore wrote, signing with his initials to indicate himself as the author of the post. 

Kabore's party later released a statement condemning what it said was becoming "a military coup" and said that the president had survived a "failed assassination attempt."

West African bloc ECOWAS on Monday also condemned the attempted coup, saying it held the military responsible for the physical well-being of Kabore. 

"ECOWAS is following with great concern the evolution of the political and security situation in Burkina Faso, characterized by a coup d'etat," the organization said in a statement.

"ECOWAS condemns this extremely grave act ... It holds the military responsible for the physical wellbeing of President Roch Marc Christian Kabore," it said. 

The African Union also condemned an attempted "coup d'etat" against Kabore and said the president's safety must be ensured.

There were conflicting reports on Kabore's whereabouts circulating in security and diplomatic circles on Monday, Reuters said.

According to AFP news agency, security sources said the president was being held at the Sangoule Lamizana barracks in the capital.

Reports from the country are anyway difficult to verify owing to the poor quality of telephone connections and an outage of the mobile internet since Sunday.

In another development, soldiers in balaclavas were seen outside the country's state TV on Monday by a journalist from the AFP news agency. It was unclear whether they were loyal to the government and protecting the site or from the side of the mutineers.

Widespread frustration

Kabore's government has been facing growing protests against its handling of a deadly Islamist insurgency in the country.

Kabore, who has been in power since 2015, was reelected in 2020 on the back of promises to make fighting the jihadis a top priority.

But he and his government have since faced accusations of inaction as civilians and soldiers continue to be killed by the militants, some of whom are linked to "Islamic State" and al-Qaida.

For weeks, the president has been the target of regular street protests demanding he step down.

Some 1.5 million of the country's 21 million inhabitants are considered internally displaced and more than 6,000 people have been killed since the insurgency began six years ago.

Despite its gold resources, the country is also one of the poorest in the world and ranks at 182 from 189 nations on the United Nation's Human Development Index.

ab, tj, wd/msh (Reuters, AFP, AP)