![]() ![]() In the period 1999-2007, more than half a million Burkinabe returned to Burkina Faso due to the persecution of immigrant labourers in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. Beginning in the late 1990s, the government began to privatize some state-owned entities in order to attract foreign investment. (In the early 21st century, however, unrest in neighbouring countries, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire, made it difficult for Burkinabés to find employment.) The development of industry in Burkina Faso is hampered by the small size of the market economy and by the absence of a direct outlet to the sea. As many as 1.5 million people, or almost one-third of the country’s labour force, have been abroad at any given time. Difficult economic conditions, made worse by severe intermittent droughts, have provoked considerable migration from rural to urban areas within Burkina Faso and to neighbouring countries, most notably Ivory Coast and Ghana. About nine-tenths of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture or livestock rising. The capital, Ouagadougou, is in the centre of the country and lies about 500 miles (800 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. The name Burkina Faso, which means “Land of Incorruptible People,” was adopted in 1984. A former French colony, it gained independence as Upper Volta in 1960. The country occupies an extensive plateau, and its geography is characterized by a Savanna that is grassy in the north and gradually gives way to sparse forests in the south. The post Revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara reburied in Burkina Faso appeared first on Al Jazeera.Burkina Faso, landlocked country in western Africa. The family asked the government to bury him elsewhere, but was told it was at the army’s discretion since he was a soldier. A lot of people were tortured there and crimes committed there and murders,” his younger brother Paul Sankara told The Associated Press news agency by phone from the United States, where he lives. “That place is painful for us to put our feet there. While Sankara’s family was happy that he was finally laid to rest, they said the place of burial was like a slap in the face because of the horrors that occurred there. Compaore, who now lives in Ivory Coast, has always denied involvement in Sankara’s assassination. It led to a lengthy trial that culminated in April 2022 with life terms in absentia for Compaore and the suspected hit squad leader, and a similar term for a detained general who had been army commander at the time. He went on to rule for 27 years – during which Sankara’s killing was a strict taboo – until 2014, when he was forced to resign in the face of mass protests against an attempt to extend his nearly 30-year rule.Īfter Compaore’s downfall, the 13 bodies were exhumed in 2015 from a cemetery on the outskirts of the city for an investigation. The killings took place on the same day that Compaore seized power. Sankara and a dozen other leaders were shot dead by a hit squad at a meeting of the ruling National Revolutionary Council on October 15, 1987. He changed the country’s name from the colonial-era Upper Volta to Burkina Faso – “the land of honest men” – and pushed through a range of reforms, including promoting vaccination and banning female genital mutilation. Nicknamed “Africa’s Che Guevara”, he was a fiery Marxist-Leninist who blasted the West for neo-colonialism and hypocrisy. Sankara came to power in August 1983 as an army captain, aged 33, after he and former President Blaise Compaore led a leftist coup that overthrew a moderate military faction. Soldiers and community leaders paid tribute during a ceremony on Thursday at the site in the capital, Ouagadougou, which has since become a memorial for the former leader featuring a life-size statue of him pumping his fist in the air.Īll the coffins were draped in Burkina Faso flags with a photo beside them. The body of Burkina Faso’s revolutionary and charismatic leader Thomas Sankara has been reburied alongside 12 comrades at the spot of their assassination nearly 30 years ago. ![]()
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