APA – Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) – The Burkinabe government on Wednesday denounced what it called egregious violations of its airspace by an internationl coalition striving to bring the country down to its knees.
“There is an international coalition against Burkina,” Defence Minister Colonel Major Kassoum Coulibaly told civil society leaders.
He cited the numerous cases of violations of Burkinabe airspace as proof.
The minister did not name the countries involved.
“But we have tried to deal with it bilaterally. We warn the perpetrators. We even send them pictures,” he said.
Coulibaly expressed his country’s indignation at these repeated incursions, saying that what Burkina Faso needed most was the means to fight and defeat terrorism.
“We do not need foreign troops on our territory,” he added.
This is not the first time that the Burkinabe military authorities have denounced foreign countries offering their services in the fight against terrorism.
In an interview, the country’s now deposed leader Paul-Henri Damiba confided that he had been “contacted by Russian-speaking companies, South Africans and even companies based in West Africa” offering “to send their personnel to occupy an area and help us…with payment, of course. But we were not part of that dynamic.”
The defence minister’s claims come at a time of regular jihadist attacks especially in the south of the country.
DS/ac/lb/as/APA