34-year-old Burkina Faso junta head to be sworn in as president

The young army captain who led the latest coup in Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traore, will be inaugurated as interim president on Friday, the constitutional council announced Wednesday.

The 34-year-old, according to AFP led disgruntled junior officers last month in the second coup in eight months to hit the jihadist-torn west African country.

Junta members had already announced that he would take over the role of transitional president, but Friday will see the official investiture.

The constitutional council said on Wednesday that it “officially notes the vacancy of the presidency,” adding that Traore had been designated as “president of the transition, head of state, supreme chief of the national armed forces” by a national meeting of the country’s forces.

Last month Traore toppled Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

In its statement on Wednesday, the council said it took note of Damiba’s “resignation”.

Damiba himself had seized power only in January, forcing out Burkina’s last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

The motive for the latest coup — as in January — was anger at failures to stem a seven-year jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and driven nearly two million people from their homes.