OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso – Burkina Faso’s interim president says he will allow investigations to be conducted on the remains of Thomas Sankara, a former president whose death nearly 30 years ago during a coup has never been fully explained.
Michel Kafando said Friday that investigations on Sankara’s body, buried in Ouagadougou, would go forward “in the name of national reconciliation.”
Sankara, a widely admired figure across Africa, was killed under unclear circumstances in the 1987 coup that brought Blaise Compaore to power. Large-scale demonstrations against Compaore’s bid to stay in office forced him to resign last month.
Sankara’s widow, Mariam Sankara, has long been fighting for the right to undergo DNA tests on Sankara’s body to prove the remains are really his, but she has been blocked in the courts.
Comments