By Mathieu Bonkoungou
OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Guinean military junta chief Captain Moussa Dadis Camara is in Burkina Faso to continue his recovery from a December assassination attempt, the Burkinabe Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
Camara, who took power in the world's biggest bauxite exporter in 2008, unexpectedly landed in Burkina Faso late on Tuesday after leaving a Moroccan hospital.
"After more than a month of treatment, and taking account of the development of his state of health, Moussa Dadis Camara arrived in Ouagadougou to continue his convalescence," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Camara was taken to a villa on the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou, rather than a hospital.
His re-emergence in public occurred just days after the senior junta official in his absence pledged to enable a transition to civilian rule, raising hopes of an end to a crisis in Guinea, a linchpin for stability in West Africa.
Burkinabe President Blaise Compaore has led recent mediation efforts between the junta and the opposition.
A U.N. report has held Camara to blame for the September 28 killing by security forces of more than 150 pro-democracy marchers, a massacre which deepened Guinea's international isolation and weakened Camara's position as a credible head of state, diplomats said.
His deputy, Defence Minister Sekouba Konate, has ruled the country in the meantime and last week raised hopes of an end to the crisis by agreeing to allow an opposition-led transition government prepare the way for an election.
Camara was shot in a failed assassination attempt by his ex-aide de camp on December 3. The junta initially played down the gravity of his head wound, but he was flown to Morocco for medical treatment soon after the attack.
Camara, until then a fixture on Guinean television, has not spoken publicly, which has raised doubts about the likelihood of him making a full recovery. Earlier on Wednesday, French state-funded Radio France International quoted Burkinabe officials as saying Camara was "lucid and talking."
