Police Disperse Protest in Ouagadougou

Burkinabe police used tear gas on Saturday morning to disperse several hundred people who wanted to demonstrate against the government in Ouagadougou during a gathering banned by the city hall, an AFP journalist observed.

Riot police fired tear gas to prevent protesters from gathering at Place de la Nation, in the centre of the Burkinabe capital, which is surrounded by a large security presence and where all shops were closed.

"The march is prohibited, disperse, go home," a police officer told the demonstrators before the dispersal.

The gathering of protesters who wanted to denounce the "inability" of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré to deal with the jihadist violence ravaging Burkina Faso had been banned by the Ouagadougou city hall.

"I invite you to take all the measures you deem useful so that no illegal demonstration can take place on the municipal territory" of Ouagadougou, requested the mayor Armand Beouindé, in a note addressed to the commanders of the gendarmerie, the national and municipal police.

One of the protesters, Fabrice Sawadogo, a 28-year-old, said that "after seven years of incapacity in the face of terrorist attacks that bring us mourning every day, it is time to demand the departure of the regime." "We do not have to negotiate with an incompetent government that must admit that it has failed," he said.

The November 27 Coalition, bringing together three civil society organizations, called on "all Burkinabe to come out en masse" on Saturday "in a peaceful atmosphere, to denounce the growing insecurity and demand the departure of the head of state", Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.