The bodies of the former president of Burkina Faso Thomas Sankara and his twelve companions assassinated on October 15, 1987 during a putsch were buried on Thursday, February 23, at the place of their death in Ouagadougou, noted AFP.
Several government officials, including Prime Minister Apollinaire Joachimson Kyelem de Tambela, appeared alongside the hundred or so family members who came to pray at the thirteen coffins.
Thomas Sankara’s widow, Mariam Sankara, and her two children, who disapprove of the choice of the place of his death for his burial, were absent. But other family members were present. First draped in the Burkinabe flag, the coffins were then carried to the graves behind the giant statue of Thomas Sankara erected at the site of his assassination.
Came to power by a putsch in August 1983, Thomas Sankara, pan-African icon, was killed on October 15, 1987 during a coup fomented by his number two, Blaise Compaoré. That day, the Burkinabé president was meeting at the headquarters of his National Council of the Revolution (CNR) when a commando of putschist soldiers arrived on the spot and shot him and his companions dead.
“The crowning achievement of a quest for justice”
“It is a historic day, a solemn moment,” the civil chaplain said Wednesday after blessing the bodies. “They were killed but they didn’t kill the vision, they didn’t extinguish the mission,” he added. “We are glad that our martyrs are finally resting in peace with a proper burial, as their souls have been wandering for eight years. The families will be able to mourn,” said the representative of the thirteen families, Joseph Saba.
Buried for the first time in a cemetery on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, the bodies of Thomas Sankara and his twelve companions were exhumed on May 25, 2015 for the purposes of legal proceedings. Me Benewende Sankara, lawyer for the Sankara family, with whom he has no family ties, hailed “the crowning achievement of a quest for justice for Thomas Sankara and all the victims of October 15, 1987”.
“It’s a joy for all the youth because it’s like a rebirth,” rejoiced Stanislas Damiba, president of the Association of Orphans of Sankara, hundreds of Burkinabe teenagers sent for training in Cuba in the years 1980 by former president. A “national and international ceremony of tribute to the victims will be organized on October 15, 2023, to honor their memories”, according to the government.
After the death of Thomas Sankara, Blaise Compaoré remained in power until a popular uprising that led to his fall in 2014. In April 2022, after a six-month trial, the military court in Ouagadougou convicted Mr. Compaoré, who lives in Ivory Coast, in absentia to life imprisonment for his role in the assassination of Thomas Sankara.
