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Members of ECOWAS and the UN met on Monday with Burkina Faso’s ousted president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré and the new leader Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
On Monday afternoon, the junta named Damiba, the leader of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration, as the country’s new president.
The head of the ECOWAS delegation was upbeat about the meeting.
“We’ve had very frank discussions with the team and with the head of state (Damiba). We’ve also come to visit President Kabore. We will go back and report to them (ECOWAS) the discussions that we’ve had. We cannot disclose the discussions, but we can say that we’ve come to see President Kabore. And on the surface, I mean, we’ve had a good conversation with him and he’s in good health”, said Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, head of the ECOWAS delegation and Ghanaian Foreign Minister.
The regional bloc suspended Burkina Faso last week.
Despite the suspension the head of ECOWAS vowed to continue to work with the new authorities.
“The security situation is a situation that affects the whole of West Africa, and something even beyond West Africa going towards central Africa. And so we will not leave Burkina Faso on its own, we will continue to work with Burkina Faso to fight this menace of terrorism and armed conflict and so on and so forth. So we will work with the new administration, we’ll continue to support, ECOWAS will”, added Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.
Leaders from the bloc will hold a summit in Accra on Thursday to assess whether they should impose sanctions on the country.
