POLICE and forensic experts in Burkina Faso have started opening 13 graves, which may include the body of Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader whose death nearly 30 years ago in a coup has remained a mystery.Sankara, a widely admired figure across Africa, was killed with 12 others under unclear circumstances in the 1987 coup that brought Blaise Compaoré, his former friend, to power.

Sankara’s widow, Mariam, has fought for DNA tests on Sankara’s body to prove the remains are really his, but has been blocked in the courts. The exhumation was authorised in March.

Michel Kafando, the interim president, said last year that investigations into Sankara’s death would go forward “in the name of national reconciliation”.

The exhumations began yesterday morning at Dagnoen cemetery, on the eastern outskirts of Ouagadougou, and are expected to be a lengthy process. Local police and forensic experts from Burkina Faso and France are performing the exhumations. Tests will follow to prove the identities and causes of death.

Hundreds stood outside the cemetery, some around mounds of dark brown earth with soldiers on top, awaiting word on their former leader. They urged police to admit journalists to verify the findings.

Compaoré was driven from Burkina Faso by large-scale violent protests in October over his bid to remain in power.

Protesters have since demanded the truth about Sankara — whose name people were afraid to speak under Compaoré’s rule. For years, Burkina Faso’s residents and Sankara’s family have demanded to know how the leader and his colleagues died and if he is, in fact, buried in the grave marked with his name.

Sankara was a Marxist, anti-imperialist revolutionary who, in four years in power, doubled the number of children in schools, reduced infant mortality, redistributed land from feudal landlords to peasants and planted 10 million trees that still help shade Ouagadougou, the capital. — AP.

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