W.Africa Bloc Suspends Post-coup Burkina

West African leaders on Friday decided to suspend Burkina Faso from the regional bloc following a coup, but will not impose other sanctions pending the outcome of talks with the junta.

Conferring four days after the latest military takeover in their region, heads of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) agreed to send two missions to Ouagadougou, a participant at their summit said.

A mission of ECOWAS chiefs of staff will fly to the Burkinabe capital on Saturday, followed on Monday by ministerial-level envoys.

Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the UN envoy to West Africa and the Sahel, is also to visit this weekend.

The leaders will meet again on February 3 in Ghana's capital Accra to assess the outcome of these missions and see whether additional sanctions should be imposed along with suspension, the source said.

Rebel soldiers seized president Roch Marc Christian Kabore on Monday amid rising anger at his failure to stem jihadist violence ravaging the impoverished nation.

The new leader is Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, 41, a rising star in the military who commands an eastern region that has been badly hit by jihadists.

In the past 18 months, the once 15-nation ECOWAS has suspended two other members -- Guinea and Mali -- where coups have occurred.

But it has also imposed an array of sanctions against them, including measures targeting their leaders.

At a virtual summit lasting around three hours, the ECOWAS leaders called for Kabore and other detained leaders to be released.

On Tuesday, the bloc issued a statement condemning the coup and accused the military of forcing Kabore to resign "under threat, intimidation and pressure".

Amid speculation on Thursday that ECOWAS would slap punishing sanctions on Burkina Faso, Damiba made his first televised comments since the coup, asking for help from the country's "international partners".

"I call on the international community to support our country so it can exit this crisis as soon as possible," he said.

Saying he understood "legitimate doubts" triggered by the coup, Damiba said Burkina Faso "will continue to respect international commitments, especially concerning respect for human rights," and judicial independence would be "assured."

He promised Burkina Faso would "return to a normal constitutional life... when the conditions are right".

The coup is the latest bout of turmoil to strike Burkina Faso, a landlocked state that has suffered chronic instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

Kabore, 64, was elected in 2015 following a popular revolt that forced out strongman Blaise Compaore.

He was re-elected in 2020, but the following year faced a wave of anger over the toll from a jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali.

Since 2015, some 2,000 people have been killed, according to an AFP tally.

Troops, police and a volunteer civil militia have paid a huge price, raising questions about their leadership, training and equipment in the face of a ruthless, mobile foe.

Some 1.5 million people are internally displaced in a country of 21 million, according to the national disaster management agency CONASUR.

Kabore's well-being and whereabouts have been a key issue since the coup, with the United Nations leading calls for his release.

On Wednesday, a source in his political party, the People's Movement for Progress told AFP that the army was holding Kabore in a villa under house arrest.

"President Kabore is physically well, but I cannot say anything about his state of mind," the source said.

"He has a doctor available (and) access to his mobile phone, but under surveillance, obviously."

In an interview with AFP, the president of the ECOWAS Commission, Ivorian politician Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, said: "Every time that you have a coup d'etat, it's a democratic decline for the country and the region."

Referring to ECOWAS' principles of political neutrality and non-interference by the military, he said, "The era of coups in the 1970s is over."

"ECOWAS' response has always been very firm and very coherent -- it's zero tolerance," he said, adding that "this is also an international demand".

But, Brou said, ECOWAS was "always available to accompany" countries where there had been a coup, so that they "head into a process of a return to constitutional order".

The February 3 summit in Accra will also discuss the situation in Guinea and Mali, Brou said.