{{(BBC}})-The government of Burkina Faso has ordered the exhumation of the remains of Thomas Sankara, the former president who was killed in a 1987 coup.<\/p>\n
The move means the remains can be formally identified – a long-standing demand of Mr Sankara’s supporters, who wanted proof that the remains were his.<\/p>\n
Mr Sankara – seen as Africa’s Che Guevara – was hastily buried in a coup led by his successor, Blaise Compaore.<\/p>\n
Mr Compaore quit the presidency amid massive street protests last October.<\/p>\n
While he was in office, a Burkina Faso court blocked a request by Mr Sankara’s family for his remains to be exhumed.<\/p>\n
Mr Compaore has always denied being involved in the ex-leader’s killing, insisting that the “facts are known” and he has “nothing to hide”.<\/p>\n
The new government in Burkina Faso, headed by Michel Kafando, said Mr Sankara’s family would be given the means to help identify the corpse, according to the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
Miriam Sankara, the former leader’s widow, told the BBC French service the family had not asked for the government’s help – and had yet to be officially contacted.<\/p>\n
“We, the family… cannot exhume the corpse,” she said. “We want the judiciary to do it. <\/p>\n
“And if they do it, it should be in the context of a judicial process that we have always demanded, in the context of finding out the truth and the helping in the search for President Sankara’s murderers. ”<\/p>\n
Mr Sankara, a Marxist revolutionary, became president in 1983 after an internal power struggle. He led his country for four years until his death at the age of 37.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{(BBC}})-The government of Burkina Faso has ordered the exhumation of the remains of Thomas Sankara, the former president who was killed in a 1987 coup. The move means the remains can be formally identified – a long-standing demand of Mr Sankara’s supporters, who wanted proof that the remains were his. Mr Sankara – seen as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000056414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-18824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000056414,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18824.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18824.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18824.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18824.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18824.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18824.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000056414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18824"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=18824"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=18824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}