The current situation in which the Burkinabe transition president, Michel Kafando, and the members of the government have been taken hostage by the Presidential Security Regiment (RSP) on Wednesday afternoon is most likely not a fit of temper from soldiers who fear losing their benefits. It is indeed an attempted coup, even though there is still confusion in Ouagadougou.

A military man announced this Thursday 17 September in the morning the “deposition of the president” and the “dissolution of the transition government” on the public television.

This soldier in uniform, identified as Lieutenant-Colonel Mamadou Bamba, also announced the establishment of a “national council for democracy” in charge of organising the elections.

The president of the transition parliament immediately reacted to this announcement, denouncing this morning a “coup d’état” and calling “the population to immediately rally against this abuse of authority”.

The UN Security Council and the European Union (EU) demanded that the president and head of government be released “immediately”.

Sporadic shots were regularly heard in the capital, locked down by the soldiers of the presidential guard who are keeping hostage the president and head of government at the presidential palace since yesterday.

Soldiers from the Presidential Security Regiment (RSP) in particular, an elite unit which was one of the pillars of the regime of ex-president Blaise Compaoré, ousted by street protests in October 2014 after 27 years in power, have set up barriers all around Ouaga2000, the area where the presidential palace is located.

The soldiers fired warning shots in the evening of Wednesday 16^th September to scatter demonstrations which started to thwart this attempted coup which comes about 3 weeks from the presidential election of 11^th October.

Le Balai Citoyen, an opposition and civil society organisations collective which supervised the demonstrations that led to the fall of Blaise Compaoré, called for a rally on the Revolution Place starting from 7 a.m.