The African Union (AU) said Monday it had suspended Burkina Faso in response to the Jan. 24 coup that ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kabore.
The bloc's 15-member Peace and Security Council said on Twitter it had voted "to suspend the participation of #BurkinaFaso in all AU activities until the effective restoration of constitutional order in the country."
Mousa Faki Mahamat, chair of the African Union Commission, had already condemned the coup the day it happened and before it was clear who was taking charge.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) suspended Burkina Faso on Friday and sent a delegation to meet with the ruling junta Saturday. The junta "reaffirmed its commitment to sub-regional and international organizations," in a statement, adding that the ECOWAS delegates met briefly with junta leader Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
Earlier in the day, they held longer talks with other members of the junta which seized power on Monday.
The ECOWAS delegation arrived in the capital Ouagadougou on Saturday morning and left on Sunday, said ECOWAS peace and security commissioner Francis Behanzin of Benin.
The delegation led by Behanzin is composed of representatives from Benin, Togo and Ghana, and will "evaluate the situation before the arrival of another mission next week."
Ministerial-level ECOWAS envoys are expected to arrive in the Burkina Faso capital on Monday.
The once 15-nation ECOWAS had already suspended two other members – Guinea and Mali – after recent military coups.
On Friday it also suspended Burkina Faso, demanding the release of Kabore, who is being held under house arrest by the army, as well as other detained officials.
West African leaders will hold a summit on Feb. 3 in Ghana's capital Accra to assess the outcome of the Burkina missions and decide whether to impose sanctions as it has done for Mali and Guinea.
The president of the ECOWAS Commission, Ivorian politician Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the situation in Mali and Guinea will also be discussed at the February summit. He said ECOWAS' response to coups has "always been very firm and very coherent – it's zero tolerance."
Damiba has only spoken once since seizing power, in a televised address on Thursday in which he asked for help from Burkina Faso's "international partners."
The coup is the latest bout of turmoil to strike Burkina Faso, a landlocked state that has suffered chronic instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.
An extremist insurgency that spread over Mali's border has killed more than 2,000 people and forced 1.5 million to flee their homes since 2015.
The spate of coups is expected to be a major point of discussion at the AU summit in Addis Ababa this weekend, diplomats say.
