The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mahamat Saleh ANNADIF, will assess the situation in Burkina Faso with an ECOWAS delegation led by Ms. Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ghana and President of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers.

The joint delegation will have meetings with military leaders as well as various Burkinabe actors.

The West African bloc ECOWAS suspended Burkina Faso on Friday following a coup but said it will not impose other
sanctions yet.

The bloc is calling for the junta to release ousted president Roch Marc Christian Kabore and other officials detained during Monday’s coup.

There’s growing international condemnation of the military coup in Burkina Faso and calls for the deposed president’s immediate release.

Military leaders said former president Marc Roch Kabore was safe, but have not produced images of him nor shown him publicly since he was detained.

Burkina Faso is now led by the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR) overseen by Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

Sankara trial:
The trial of former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré and 13 co-accused over the 1987 assassination of his predecessor Thomas Sankara is set to resume.

Following the January 24, military take over, widespread rumors on social media on the potential release of General Diendere, the leader of the 2015 coup attempted against Blaise Campaore and suspected architect of the coup during which Thomas Sankara was killed. Military authorities swiftly denied allegations and reassured the international partners.

Sankara, often called the African Che Guevara, was a hugely popular leader and has become a cult figure.

Sankara took power in a coup in 1983 but was killed on October 15, 1987, in a putsch led by Compaoré.

Compaoré fled in 2014 after he attempted to change the law to extend his rule.

He currently lives in Ivory Coast and may be tried in absentia.

A warrant for his arrest was issued in 2015.

He has always denied involvement in Sankara’s assassination.

His co-accused include General Gilbert Diendere, Compaore’s former right-hand man and a former head of the elite Presidential Security Regiment.

Diendere is already serving a 20-year sentence for masterminding a plot in 2015 against the country’s transitional government.

He is believed to have headed the unit that killed Sankara.

Several other members of the presidential guard at that time will also be in the dock.

Agencies/Aljazeera.