Burkina Faso’s Military Rulers Say Coup Attempt Foiled, Plotters Arrested

A coup attempt against Burkina Faso’s military rulers has been thwarted by the country’s intelligence and security services, authorities said.

Burkina Faso’s military rulers said in a statement on Wednesday that army officers and others had planned to seize power and plunge the country into “chaos”.

“Officers and other alleged actors involved in this attempt at destabilisation have been arrested and others are actively sought,” a spokesman for the ruling military Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo said in a statement without providing details.

The latest coup attempt occurred on Tuesday, according to the statement.

The military government said it would seek to shed “all possible light on this plot” and that it regretted “that officers whose oath is to defend their homeland have strayed into an undertaking of this nature”.

The country’s military prosecutor later said that four people had been arrested and two were on the run. An investigation has been opened based on “credible allegations about a plot against state security implicating officers”, the prosecutor said.

Earlier this month, the military prosecutor said three soldiers had been arrested and charged with plotting against the ruling military government of Captain Ibrahim Traore who seized power in September 2022 eight months after an earlier military coup had overthrown the democratically elected President Roch Marc Kabore.

Burkina Faso’s capital city Ouagadougou appeared calm on Wednesday evening following the military’s announcement of an attempt to topple it.