OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – Burkina Faso’s ruling military junta on Friday ordered United Nations resident coordinator Barbara Manzi to leave the country immediately, without giving an explanation.
A spokesman for the government and the UN did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters.
The Italian Barbara Manzi, who has a long experience in the humanitarian field, was appointed last year in Burkina Faso by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres. The UN is helping more than two million people displaced by the violence in the country.
Like neighboring Mali, Burkina Faso is in the grip of an Islamist insurgency which precipitated two military coups in January and then September 2022.
The hypothesis of an imminent agreement between the junta and the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner group has been mentioned with insistence in recent weeks.
(Report by Thiam Ndiaga, written by Edward McAllister, French version Tangi Salaün, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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