A Thomas Sankara monument now stands in Rome, where Burkina Faso’s Culture Minister Pingdwendé Gilbert Ouédraogo and a delegation of Sahelian diplomats unveiled a two-metre steel sculpture of the late president at Thomas Sankara Park on Saturday, October 24, 39 years after his assassination.
Ouédraogo attended the ceremony alongside diplomats from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, members of the Burkinabè diaspora and the Alliance of Sahel States, and Paolo Emilio Marchionne, who presides over the municipality of Rome’s third district.
Burkina Faso’s ambassador to Italy, Cyrille Ganou-Badolo, told the gathering that Sankara belongs to all humanity, a reminder, she said, that his influence reaches well beyond his home country.
Artist Hamed Sékou Ouattara crafted the monument as a steel prism that stands two metres high and 70 centimetres wide, and Madi Sakandé donated the work to the park.
The unveiling follows the park’s naming ceremony on September 17, 2025, when the municipality honoured Sankara by attaching his name to the green space on Via Ugo Della Seta in the Montesacro district. Matteo Pietrosante, a young Italian, drove the project and rallied local authorities behind it.
At that ceremony, the municipality said it wanted to promote the values it associates with Sankara, including solidarity, integrity, the emancipation of ordinary people, human dignity and friendship, and Ganou-Badolo urged visitors to protect the park as a place of memory. Ouédraogo used the Rome event to launch a campaign called “Une brique pour Sankara”, which seeks contributions toward the Thomas Sankara memorial in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
Thomas Sankara led Burkina Faso as president from 1983 to 1987 and remains one of the most widely cited figures of African political thought. Soldiers killed him on October 15, 1987, in the coup that brought Blaise Compaoré to power, and Compaoré ruled the country until a popular uprising forced him out in 2014.
Memorials to Sankara now stand at home and abroad, and the Rome sculpture adds a landmark in a European capital that already carries his name in a public park.
Africa Global News Publication.
