A distinguished lawyer and leader in Burkina Faso’s civil society has been forcefully taken in the capital, Ouagadougou, by individuals dressed in plainclothes, according to an announcement from his organization on Thursday.
Guy Herve Kam, associated with the Sens organization, was abducted on Wednesday night, marking the latest incident in a string of reported kidnappings in recent months.
Sens revealed that Kam was seized upon his arrival at Ouagadougou airport from Bobo-Dioulasso, the country’s second-largest city.
Sens said it had “learned with indignation of the kidnapping of its national coordinator” and quoted unnamed witnesses saying men in plainclothes took him.
Former magistrate Kam is recognized in Burkina Faso as the family lawyer for Thomas Sankara, the head of state from 1983 to 1987, who was killed in a coup led by his successor, Blaise Compaore.
Kam co-founded the citizen movement Balai Citoyen, which played a crucial role in the overthrow of Compaore’s regime in October 2014.
In recent months, there have been multiple reported abductions of individuals perceived as opponents of the military regime that seized power in a coup led by Captain Ibrahim Traore in September 2022.
Last month, former foreign minister and ex-deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, Ablasse Ouedraogo, was notably kidnapped.
This month, former gendarmerie chief of staff Lieutenant-Colonel Evrard Somda suffered a similar fate after being accused of involvement in a “plot against state security,” which the regime claimed to have thwarted.
In September of last year, influential businessman Sansan Anselme Kambou, who was close to Somda, was abducted by intelligence agents.
The Sens group is calling on authorities to release Kam “without delay,” emphasizing that these abductions pose a “serious threat” to the rule of law.
Traore’s coup marked the country’s second within eight months, both triggered in part by discontent over the government’s failure to quell a jihadist insurgency that originated in Mali in 2015, resulting in nearly 20,000 deaths and over two million internally displaced people.
