Burkina Faso was suspended by the West African bloc ECOWAS on Friday following a coup, but no other sanctions will be imposed for the time being, according to a participant at a virtual summit.
According to the source, ECOWAS is also urging the new junta to release ousted president Roch Marc Christian Kabore and other officials detained during Monday’s coup.
The bloc will meet again on February 3 in Accra, according to the statement.
The three-hour summit also decided to dispatch a mission of ECOWAS chiefs of staff to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, on Saturday.
This will be followed on Monday by ministerial-level envoys from the bloc, the source said.
Kabore, 64, was elected in 2015 following a popular revolt that forced out strongman Blaise Compaore.
He was re-elected in 2020, but the following year faced a wave of anger over the mounting toll from a jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali.
On Sunday, mutinies broke out in several barracks and the following day, Kabore was arrested and taken away by troops.
The impoverished Sahel state is being run by a junta led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who commands military units in the country’s jihadist-torn east.
On the eve of the summit, Damiba made a televised appeal for “the international community to support our country so it can exit this crisis as soon as possible.”
He promised Burkina would “return to a normal constitutional life… when the conditions are right.”
Burkina Faso joins two other ECOWAS countries — Mali and Guinea — where there have been coups in the past 18 months.
Those two countries have been suspended by the regional bloc, which has also imposed an array of sanctions on them, including measures against individuals.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
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