Burkina Faso’s former foreign minister and now an opposition leader, Ablasse Ouedraogo, has been missing for three days.
He was taken from his home by individuals claiming to be police officers, as reported by his party on Wednesday.
On Sunday evening, Ouedraogo “was taken away by individuals who presented themselves as members of the national police at his house in Ouagadougou,” Le Faso Autrement said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Since then, the party has not had any news of his whereabouts and has been unable to contact him, it said, calling for Ouedraogo’s “immediate release without conditions”.
Ouedraogo, a former deputy director general of the World Trade Organization and with a history in the African Development Bank, currently leads the opposition party Le Faso Autrement.
He has been openly critical of the military-led government that took charge after the September 2022 coup.
In early November, the Burkina Faso military forcibly conscripted the 70-year-old Ouedraogo with intentions to deploy him to the front lines to assist in the country’s fight against terrorism, amid a longstanding jihadist insurgency.
His political party strongly denounced this action, labeling it as retaliation for Ouedraogo’s vocal opposition against the country’s ruling authorities.
According to Human Rights Watch, around a dozen dissenting individuals have been drafted by the military to join the fight against the jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso.