By Cooper Inveen
ACCRA (Reuters) – The chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Nana Akufo-Addo said on Thursday that a coup in Mali was “contagious” and had led to subsequent coups in the region.
Mali’s August 2020 coup was followed by a second military coup in the West African nation last May, one in Guinea in September last year, a coup in Burkina Faso last week, and a failed coup in Guinea-Bissau on Tuesday.
The trend “must be contained before it devastates our whole region,” said Akufo-Addo at the opening of a summit of West African leaders in Ghana’s capital Accra, to discuss the coup in Burkina Faso.
“This summit will focus on the emerging threats in our region that stem from the military’s interference in Mali and its contagious influence in Guinea and Burkina Faso,” he said.
(Reporting by Cooper Inveen; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Bate Felix)
