The bodies of the Pan -African icon and his twelve comrades in arms murdered on October 15, 1987 are now based in the tombs behind the giant statue of the former leader.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
The bodies of the former president of Burkina Faso Thomas Sankara and his twelve companions murdered on October 15, 1987 during a putsch was buried on Thursday, February 23, at the place of their death in Ouagadougou, noted the ‘AFP.
Several government officials, including Prime Minister Apollinaire Joachimson Kyelem of Tambela, appeared alongside the hundred family members who came to meditate with the thirteen coffins.
The widow of Thomas Sankara, Mariam Sankara, and her two children, who disapprove of the choice of his death for his burial, were absent. But other family members were present. First covered with the Burkinabé flag, the coffins were then worn in the tombs behind the giant statue of Thomas Sankara erected at the place of his assassination.
Built to power by a putsch in August 1983, Thomas Sankara, a Pan -African icon, was killed on October 15, 1987 during a fomented coup by his number two, Blaise Compaoré. That day, the Burkinabé president was in a meeting at the headquarters of his National Council of the Revolution (CNR) when a commando of putschist soldiers arrived on the spot and killed him with his companions.
“The coronation of a quest for justice”
“It’s a historic day, a solemn moment,” the civil chaplain said on Wednesday after the blessing of the bodies. “They were killed but they did not kill the vision, they did not turn off the mission,” he added. “We are happy that our martyrs are finally resting in peace with a correct burial, because it has been eight years since their souls wandered. 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 had been exhumed on May 25, 2015 for the purposes of legal proceedings. M e benewende Sankara, lawyer for the Sankara family, with whom he has no family bond, praised “the coronation of a quest for justice for Thomas Sankara and all the tortured on October 15 1987 “.
“It is a joy for all youth because it is like a rebirth”, welcomed Stanislas Damiba, president of the association of orphans of Sankara, hundreds of Burkinabé adolescents sent to training in Cuba in the 1980s by the 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.