Mariam Sankara waited 35 years for a verdict. In April 2022 a military court in Ouagadougou convicted Blaise Compaoré in absentia for the 1987 assassination of her husband, Thomas Sankara.
An officer and his wife
Thomas Sankara, then a young army officer, married Mariam Serme in 1979. They had two sons, Philippe and Auguste. In August 1983 he came to power in Upper Volta and the following year renamed the country Burkina Faso, “the land of upright people”.
First lady of a revolution
Mariam served as first lady through his years of reform, from vaccination drives to campaigns for women’s rights. Sankara cut the trappings of office, and the family lived modestly. On 15 October 1987 he was killed in the coup that brought Blaise Compaoré to power, and Mariam went into exile in France with their sons.
The long fight for the truth
For decades she pressed for an investigation from abroad. She returned to Burkina Faso in May 2015 after Compaoré’s fall, to a crowd at the airport, and followed the trial that opened in 2021. On 6 April 2022 the court sentenced Compaoré to life in prison in absentia.