Discontent has grown after a series of massacres this year

[sharminsultana]

Ouagadougou (AFP) – President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was confronted Thursday with requests to toughen measures against the jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso, in the aftermath of the crisis which claimed the political scalp of the Prime Minister.

Seeking to defuse anger over a bloody six-year campaign that claimed the lives of around 2,000 people and forced 1.4 million people to leave their homes, Kaboré on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Christophe Joseph Marie Dabire.

This decision also triggered the departure of Dabire’s government – under Burkinabé law, the resignation of the prime minister also requires the resignation of the entire government.

“We have to find a new prime minister and a fighting phone number library government – and as quickly as possible,” demanded the state newspaper Sidwaya.

with provisional ministers dealing only with day-to-day affairs,” said Issouf Sawadogo, senior member of a coalition of civil society groups.

“We are at war, and we need a fighting government to take the situation in hand,” he said, calling for the new prime minister to be appointed “within 24 hours”.

Under pressure: President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré Ludovic MARIN AFP
Dabire’s government has been “engulfed in the wave of discontent from those outraged at the daily killings of soldiers and civilians,” the online newspaper Wakat Sera said.