Burkina Faso’s president ‘back in charge’ after coup

BURKINA Faso’s interim President Michel Kafando, who was taken hostage during a coup a week ago, said he was back in power and had restored a civilian transitional government.

“I have returned to work,” he said in a brief speech to journalists at the foreign ministry in the capital yesterday. “The transition is back and at this very minute is exercising the power of the state.”

Burkina Faso coup leaders agreed to return to their barracks, signing a deal with the army that apparently defused the standoff sparked by last week’s coup.

The breakthrough came on Tuesday night after marathon talks in Nigeria’s Abuja, where West African heads of state had sought to break the impasse fuelled by angry threats on both sides.