Crisis in Burkina Faso rages on

ECOWAS mediators led by Senegal’s President Macky Sall drew up the deal after three days of tense talks at a hotel in the capital Ouagadougou, with details read out to reporters by former Burkina prime minister Kadre Desire Ouedraogo at 6:30 pm (1830 GMT) Sunday.

The presidential guard is loyal to Compaore, who had ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years before being ousted by popular uprising in 2014.

The Speaker of Burkina Faso’s National Transition Council (CNT, interim parliament) Cherif Moumina Sy on Friday issued a statement declaring himself the interim president.

Diendere has claimed he carried out the coup over plans to disband the presidential guard and because several of Compaore’s allies were barred from taking part in the polls.

Meanwhile, anti-coup protests continued for a fourth day on Sunday as demonstrators erected barricades in neighbourhoods across Ouagadougou, braving the presidential guard’s attempts to break up gatherings of protesters.

In the crowds on Sunday, many also expressed their anger at the coup and the leader installed by the military, Gen. Gilbert Diendere.

In contrast to October’s uprising when thousands of protesters packed the streets led by civil society groups like Balai Citoyen (Citizen’s Broom), soldiers acted quickly to scatter groups of demonstrators.

“The mediators are here to help us find a compromise, but there are things that are nonnegotiable”, said transitional lawmaker Jean Hobert Bazie, who joined other lawmakers in calling for the return of Kafando’s government.

Diendere, speaking in a telephone interview Thursday with the Paris-based magazine Jeune Afrique, said the military had to step in “to prevent the destabilization of the country” and that Kafando and Zida were under house arrest and “will be released”.

Across the country, residents – many of them young – have set up roadblocks in protest at the coup, burning tyres and paralysing traffic.

Burkina Faso, a former French colony, is one of the poorest countries in the world.

At least 10 people have been killed and 113 injured in clashes since Wednesday’s military coup in Ouagadougou, a hospital source told AFP on Saturday.

Some checkpoints along Burkina’s frontier with neighbouring Ivory Coast remained open despite the ordered closure of land and air borders by the coup leaders.

“All measures taken by those who took power by force in Burkina Faso are null and void”, Uganda’s AU ambassador Mull Katende said Friday.

He said the coup had the full backing of the regular army and he pledged not to interfere in legal cases against Compaore and former members of his entourage.