Under siege
on Wonderous Wanderland (Burkina Faso), 23/Mar/2011 18:58, 34 days ago
Last night I had a very brief glimpse of what it must feel like living in a conflict zone. Gunfire rang just outside the flat for hours on end. According to the news - which so far has been very limited on the subject - a small battalion of soldiers wanted to show their dissatisfaction over the arrest and jail terms of some of their colleagues. Here’s what Reuters reported on the events this morning:OUAGADOUGOU, March 23 (Reuters) - Several hours of gunfire rang out in the Burkina Faso capital overnight, a Reuters witness said on Wednesday in what an army source said was a protest by soldiers against recent arrests of their colleagues.The gunfire could be heard emanating from two military camps, one in Ouagadougou and one on its outskirts, lasting more than three hours into early Wednesday. Several service stations had been pillaged.Authorities could not be reached for comment but a source at army headquarters said soldiers had been angered by the arrest and jailing of five colleagues found guilty of attacking a civilian when an argument went out of control. "They think the prison terms were too heavy and they were protesting," said the source of jail terms up to 18 months. [...](Reporting by Mathieu Bonkoungou; Writing by Bate Felix and Mark John; Editing by Diana Abdallah)So they went on a rampage - shooting (in the air... luckily), breaking shop windows, looting, beating a few people, stealing cars, etc. - terrorizing the whole city center for most of the night.Talking of an overreaction perhaps???Belinda, reporting live from Ouagadougou....I heard the first shots around 11.30pm last night. Although at that time they were concentrated on the other side of town - around the Gounghin military camp - so quite some distance away, and I didn’t actually realize yet they were gunshots. For all I knew, they were just distant explosions perhaps from a fire somewhere. However, not much later I heard the ‘explosions’ (were they gunshots???) spread through the city and draw closer. It was only once I actually saw the gunfire through mybedroom window - coming from the second camp which lies very close to the flat - I got really frightened. At that time I had no idea what was happening, who was shooting (who or what?) and for what reason. As I heard no sirens or didn’t see any (armed) forces intervene, I even lingered on the thought I was witnessing a real coup d’état. Not knowing is often the worst because your imagination starts running wild!It was 12.45am and they were outside my apartment building - shooting away - when I finally called Kris, against better judgment I admit. He picked up on my distress immediately - could hear the gunshots through the phone as well - and he went to see if the neighbours at the villa knew perhaps what was going on. After discussing the situation with them and being convinced that the soldiers were not actually shooting at civilians (!), he took his chances and came to the flat (for the record: totally against my advice and warnings, but I was secretly happy he did). On the way he was halted by one soldier to give him a lift, and again by four others who demanded money. He complied in both instances and he made it to the flat unharmed. It was 1.30am. We stayed there for the rest of the night, huddled on the floor - a movie scene ridiculously real“stay away from the windows and stay low” - ‘cause even though they were just shooting up in the air, from where they were standing, I figured a flat on the 3rd floor seemed pretty close to ‘up in the air’! Finally, around 4 or 5am the shooting slowly subsided when the soldiers started to make their way back to their camps. ...Dawn breaks, the city comes to life and apart from some broken windows, a lot of shops staying closed and people standing around in little groups discussing last nights events, everything seems back to normal. No real harm done, or so it seems, but being my first - and hopefully last -‘mass shooting-incident’ it left quite an impression nevertheless!