File picture of a mural in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
| Photo Credit: APm

Burkina Faso’s ruling junta will remain in power for another five years after participants in national talks on Saturday proposed extending the transition back to democracy by 60 months from July, according to the text of an approved new charter.

The military authorities seized power in a 2022 coup and promised to hold elections in July this year to restore civilian rule, but also said that security considerations would take priority.

According to the new charter, signed by military leader Ibrahim Traore, the transition is set at 60 months from July 2.

“The elections marking the end of the transition may be organised before this deadline if the security situation so permits,” it added.

The substantial delay is likely to deepen concerns about democratic backsliding in West and Central Africa, where there have been eight coups over the past four years.

The charter also allows Traore to run for president when the elections take place.

Violence in West Africa’s Sahel region fuelled by a decade-long fight with Islamist groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State has worsened since respective militaries seized power in Burkina Faso and neighbouring Mali and Niger.

Burkina Faso experienced a severe escalation of deadly attacks in 2023, with more than 8,000 people reportedly killed, according to U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Around 170 people were “executed” in attacks on three villages in northern Burkina Faso a week ago, a regional public prosecutor said on March 3.

Aly Benjamin Coulibaly said he received reports of the attacks on the villages of Komsilga, Nodin and Soroe in Yatenga province on February 25, with a provisional toll of “around 170 people executed”.

The attacks left others wounded and caused material damage, the prosecutor for the northern town of Ouahigouya added in a statement.

He said his office ordered an investigation and appealed to the public for information.

Survivors of the attacks told AFP that dozens of women and young children were among the victims.

Local security sources said the attacks were separate from deadly incidents at a mosque and a church in northern Burkina Faso that also happened a week ago.

Authorities have yet to release an official death toll for those attacks.

Burkina Faso has been grappling with a jihadist insurgency waged by rebels affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group that spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

The violence has killed almost 20,000 people and displaced more than two million in Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries situated in the Sahel, a region wracked by instability.

Anger at the state’s inability to end the insecurity played a major role in two military coups in 2022. Current strongman Ibrahim Traore has made the fight against rebel groups a priority.