Burkina Faso releases Nigerian military crew after apology

Captain Ibrahim Traore, Burkina Faso's president, leaves the ceremony for the 35th anniversary of Thomas Sankara’s assassination, in Ouagadougou, on October 15, 2022. [AFP]

Burkina Faso has freed 11 Nigerian soldiers detained after making an emergency landing on Burkinabe territory, after Nigeria sent an envoy to apologise for violating the junta-ruled country's airspace, officials said Thursday.

The crew of a Nigerian Air Force C-130 made what the military said was a "precautionary landing" in the Burkinabe city of Bobo-Dioulasso on December 8 due to a technical problem -- a day after Nigerian fighter jets helped thwart a coup attempt in neighbouring Benin, stoking regional tension.

Burkina Faso's military government and its allies condemned the entry into Burkinabe airspace as an "unfriendly act", and the crew had been held ever since.

"The detained Nigerian Military aircraft and 11 crew members in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, (have) been released," Nigerian foreign ministry spokesman Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa said in a texted response to AFP.

He said the release followed a Wednesday meeting between Burkina Faso's junta leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, and Nigeria's foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, who is a special envoy of President Bola Tinubu.

A statement from Traore's office, seen by AFP, said Nigeria "regrets the irregularities in the authorization procedure to enter Burkina Faso's airspace" and that Tuggar had offered Abuja's "'apologies for this unfortunate incident'."

The landing of the turboprop plane had prompted a harsh statement from the Alliance of Sahel States -- made up of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso -- which said their air forces had been put on maximum alert and authorised to "neutralise any aircraft" found to violate the confederation's airspace.

The trio of Sahel countries, all under military rule and battling long-running jihadist insurgencies, maintains uneasy relations with their west African neighbours, including Nigeria. In January, they left the regional bloc ECOWAS after forming their own alliance.