Burkina Faso: 100 held for riots
22/02/2008 08:26  - (SA)  

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Bobo-Dioulasso - Security forces in Burkina Faso arrested about 100 people during two days of riots in the southern business capital, said government ministers on Thursday.

A demonstration on Wednesday by local traders protesting over reports of increased customs controlled spilled over into violence after groups of young men torched tyres and barricades in the streets and hurled rocks at police, they said.

"The rumours of increased customs checks are unfounded. These were ill-intentioned people who infiltrated the demonstration to loot and steal," said Territorial Administration Minister Pegdwende Clement Sawadogo.

Such violence was rare in the poor, landlocked West African country, especially in the normally sleepy city of Bobo-Dioulasso.

Youths threw rocks at Sawadogo's convoy as he and other government ministers toured the city on Thursday to visit the scenes of destruction.

Tyres still smouldered in the virtually deserted streets and many residents only started venturing out late on Thursday after quiet returned to the city.

Service stations and adjacent shops were ransacked and looters stole computers and air conditioning units from a customs bureau, a tax office and the town hall of Do, one of Bobo-Dioulasso's three municipal districts.

"The town hall has no memory now. All our archives have been destroyed, from births and marriages to property records," said Mayor Moustapha Tinto told Reuters.