Malian soldiers and Russian mercenaries from Wagner arrived in Ouagadougou. The situation has been confused in Burkina since the attack on Mansila last Tuesday, June 11, during which more than a hundred Burkinabe soldiers were killed and some taken hostage by the jihadists of Jnim (Groupe de support à l’insurgency). Islam and Muslims, linked to al-Qaeda). After this massacre, on the subject of which the Burkinabè transitional authorities have to date made no statement, a movement of discontent was expressed within part of the army. Last Wednesday, a shell was fired at the national television headquarters. The origin of this shot remains mysterious to this day. As for the transitional president, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, he briefly appeared on Sunday on the occasion of Tabaski, without speaking, he also posted two messages on social networks to talk about blood donation and tests of the baccalaureate. Which only fuels questions about his situation… In this context, according to our information, soldiers were transported from Mali to the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou.
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Aerial tracking applications show that a plane chartered by the Russian company Abakan Air traveled four times from Gao, in northern Mali, to Ouagadougou, between Saturday and Monday. Precisely an Ilyushin (II-76), a military transport aircraft capable of accommodating a large number of men and large quantities of equipment. The same aircraft then made several rotations between Bamako and Ouagadougou, Monday and yesterday Tuesday.
According to information cross-checked by RFI from several security sources in countries across theAlliance of Sahel States (Mali-Burkina-Niger), 80 to 120 men, Malian soldiers and Russian mercenaries from Wagner now integrated into the “African Corps” managed by the Russian foreign services thus arrived, and are still in the Burkinabe capital.
Their mission: to support the transition president, the captain Ibrahim Traorewhose power is presented as “ wavering ».
Is it a question of protecting him from a mutiny, or even a possible coup attempt, in order to keep him in power? Or to avoid any overflow until a solution is found for some form of “ rectification of the transition » Burkinabe?
The expression was used by the military authorities of Mali in May 2021 after the second putsch led by Colonel Assimi Goïta against the president and the transitional Prime Minister at the time, after an attempted cabinet reshuffle.
Some sources assure that these men are intended to go to Dori, not far from Mansila, from where the protest movement would have left after the massacre committed by the Jnim last week. Information denied by the sources attached by RFI. Wednesday afternoon, residents contacted by RFI in Dori assured that the situation was calm there.
At this stage, many questions and hypotheses, but no certainty about the sequence of events, which are therefore playing out at the Burkinabè national level, but also at the regional level of the AES, and with the involvement of Wagner’s Russian auxiliaries. .
Last Wednesday, June 12, after the attack on Mansila but before the shelling in the national television courtyard, Ibrahim Traoré chaired the Council of Ministers. Since then, he has briefly appeared for Tabaski but without uttering a single word.
The next Council of Ministers that Captain Traoré is supposed to chair is due to be held this Wednesday, June 19.
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