Lt Col Damiba’s incapacity to handle an Islamist insurgency was highlighted by Ibrahim Traore as the cause of the coup.
He also said that all political activity had been put on hold and that the borders had been closed indefinitely.
An elected government was overthrown by Lt Col Damiba’s junta in January for failing to stop Islamist terrorism, among other reasons.
However, his administration has also failed to put an end to Islamist bloodshed. When they were guarding a convoy of civilian vehicles on Monday in the country’s north, 11 troops were killed.
After hearing a lot of shooting in several areas of the city earlier on Friday, Lt. Col. Damiba encouraged the populace to maintain calm.
Just before 20:00 local time, more than 20 armed soldiers—the majority of whom had their faces covered—appeared on the radio-television station which was suspended earlier on
Ibrahim Traore said in a statement signed by him,
“Faced with the deteriorating situation, we tried several times to get Damiba to refocus the transition on the security question,”
“Damiba’s actions gradually convinced us that his ambitions were diverting away from what we set out to do. We decided this day to remove Damiba,”
