Burkina’s capital, Ouagadougou, known to locals as ‘Ouaga’, retains the engaging feel of an overgrown village in a country still dominated by subsistence farming. It remains one of the poorest countries in the world but at the start of this year it seemed like an island of calm in a troubled region. While nearby countries in West Africa had undergone brutal civil wars, Burkina had sailed blithely on. After 24 years in power, President Blaise Compaoré was being billed as a regional peacemaker, despite his own distinctly murky reputation, and in the November 2010 election he won 80.2 per cent of the vote.
But then, out of the blue, Compaoré was hit by successive waves of opposition. The trouble started in February when a schoolchild was allegedly killed by police, setting off a wave of demonstrations by students across the country. In April the biggest mass protest for many years took place in the capital, over rising food prices partly derived from the ongoing conflict in Côte d’Ivoire.
