The leader of Burkina Faso’s gendarmerie was dismissed on Wednesday, one week after the detention of four police officers on suspicion of participating in a “plot against state security”.
The ruling junta announced last week that the intelligence and security agencies had successfully thwarted a coup plot.
This update emerged exactly one year after junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore took control of the West African nation on September 30, 2022.
His assumption of power marked the second coup in the country within an eight-month span, both partly driven by dissatisfaction with the inability to quell a persistent jihadist insurgency.
Lieutenant-Colonel Evrard Somda has been replaced as the head of the armed police force by Lieutenant-Colonel Kouagri Natama, as indicated in a presidential decree reported by media.
In a prior position, Natama had served as the head of the police in the northern Kaya region, where Traore’s regiment had its headquarters.
Somda had been in the post since February 2022.
Despite being a respected officer, his standing was undermined following the apprehension of the four officers, two of whom were closely affiliated with him.
On Friday, during a televised interview, Traore refuted speculations suggesting that he was disbanding the gendarmerie.
Burkina Faso, a financially challenged landlocked nation, witnessed an influx of jihadists from Mali in 2015.
