Burkina Faso’s dire human rights situation further deteriorated in 2025. Deadly attacks by Islamist armed groups against civilians surged and military forces and pro-government militias committed serious abuses during counterinsurgency operations, including possible crimes against humanity.
Burkina Faso’s military junta, which took power in a 2022 coup, cracked down on media, the political opposition, and dissent, contributing to the shrinking of civic space. The junta delayed the return to civilian rule. In May 2024, the junta announced that it would remain in power for another five years after the political opposition boycotted national talks.
Military authorities clamped down on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people’s rights. In September, the junta passed a law making consensual same-sex relations a criminal offense punishable by two to five years in prison and fines.
In July, the junta passed a law abolishing the Independent National Electoral Commission, ostensibly as a cost-saving measure. The Minister of Territorial Administration said the Interior Ministry would oversee any future elections.
In January, Burkina Faso left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), having served notice a year earlier. The move limits opportunities for citizens to seek justice through the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice. In September, Burkina Faso announced it would leave the International Criminal Court, jeopardizing access to justice for victims of atrocity crimes.
Abuses by Islamist Armed Groups
Two Islamist armed groups operate in Burkina Faso: the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, or JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Sahel Province (IS Sahel).
Attacks targeted civilians perceived as members or supporters of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie, or VDPs), civilian auxiliaries of the Burkinabè armed forces or communities that did not obey the armed groups’ orders. JNIM and IS Sahel continued to besiege towns and villages across Burkina Faso, planting explosives and ambushing vehicles, cutting residents off from food, fuel, basic services, medical care, and humanitarian aid, and preventing residents from farming and grazing cattle. As of the end of 2024, an estimated 40 localities, primarily in the Centre-Nord, Est, North, and Sahel regions, were under siege, affecting up to two million people.
Between April 1 and 5, JNIM attacked four villages in the Sourou province of the Boucle du Mouhoun region—Gonon, Lanfièra, Mara, and Tiao—killing at least 100 civilian men in apparent retaliation against male residents. JNIM accused them of having collaborated with the military. During these attacks, JNIM fighters went door-to-door, ordered men to gather, and then opened fire on them. JNIM sought to justify these killings to Human Rights Watch by saying the victims were combatants.
JNIM claimed responsibility for an attack on May 11 on Djibo town, Sahel region, in which hundreds of fighters overran a military base, seized weapons, and killed dozens of soldiers. Fighters entered several neighborhoods and executed at least 26 civilians and burned shops and health facilities. Witnesses said that fighters targeted civilians from ethnic Fulani subgroups, whom it accused of supporting the VDPs.
In July, IS Sahel attacked a civilian convoy escorted by Burkinabè soldiers and VDPs near the town of Gorom Gorom, Sahel region, killing at least nine civilians.
On August 3, JNIM attacked Youba village, North region, and killed 14 civilians, including 4 children. Residents believe the attack aimed to punish the community for not complying with JNIM’s orders not to cultivate tall-growing crops that fighters said hindered their operations.
Abuses by State Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias
In their fight against JNIM and IS Sahel, the Burkinabè military and VDPs have committed grave abuses, including the killing and unlawful forced displacement of civilians, especially ethnic Fulani, whom they accuse of supporting Islamist armed groups. They have fired indiscriminately at people in the path of military-escorted convoys. As part of large-scale operations following JNIM attacks, they have massacred civilians from various ethnic groups because they lived in JNIM-controlled areas or maintained relations with Fulani people.
In early March, VDPs and soldiers, including special forces, killed at least 130 ethnic Fulani civilians, and possibly many more, around the town of Solenzo, Boucle du Mouhoun region, in a series of attacks that were part of a well-planned military operation dubbed “Green Whirlwind 2.” The operation also resulted in the mass displacement of Fulani civilians from the region.
Since 2024, VDPs have emerged as one of the main perpetrators of cattle rustling, along with JNIM, sometimes as part of a strategy to forcibly displace communities suspected of collaborating with Islamist fighters.
Crackdown on the Media and Dissent
The junta has cracked down on political opposition, the media, and dissent, and used a sweeping emergency law to silence and unlawfully conscript critics, journalists, and civil society activists.
In February 2024, armed men in civilian clothes abducted Rasmané Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo, members of the civil society group Balai Citoyen, in Ouagadougou, the capital. The two, who were unlawfully conscripted into military service, were released on October 10. In June 2024, Serge Oulon, director of the publication L’Événement, Kalifara Séré, commentator on the private television channel BF1, and Adama Bayala, also commentator on the same TV channel, all critics of the junta, were abducted by unidentified men. In October 2024, a member of the Justice Ministry stated that the three men had been conscripted. Séré was released in July 2025 and Bayala in September 2025, while Oulon is still missing.
On March 18, men claiming to be gendarmes arrested and forcibly disappeared the national secretary of the opposition political group Servir et Non se Servir (To Serve and Not Serve Oneself, or SENS) and journalist Idrissa Barry in Ouagadougou. The arrest came days after SENS issued a statement denouncing the “deadly attacks” by the military and VDPs against civilians around Solenzo on March 11. Barry remains missing.
On March 24, authorities in Ouagadougou arrested Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba, respectively president and vice president of Burkina Faso’s Journalists Association, and Luc Pagbelguem, a journalist at the private television station BF1, for allegedly denouncing the junta’s restrictions on free expression. A video circulated on social media on April 2, which their colleagues said showed the three journalists in military uniform, raising concerns that they had been unlawfully conscripted. The three werereleased in July.
On July 26, gunmen abducted Hermann Yaméogo, head of the opposition party National Union for Democracy and Development (Union nationale pour la démocratie et le développement) from his home in Ouagadougou, days after he wrote a message on Facebook criticizing the junta. He was released the following day.
On July 28, members of the intelligence services arrested Jean-Christophe Pégon, a French national and head of the International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO), an international nongovernmental organization providing safety analysis to humanitarian agencies, in Ouagadougou, and accused him of espionage. Pégon remains detained but his whereabouts are unknown.
Between July and August, security forces detained eight staff of INSO. They were all charged with spying and treason.
In August, the junta expelled the top UN representative in the country, Carol Flore-Smereczniak, following a UN report on violations against children in the country.
Between October 10 and 15, men in civilian clothes abducted the judicial officers, Urbain Meda, Seydou Sanou, Benoit Zoungrana, Moussa Dianda, and Alban Somé, from their homes in Ouagadougou. On October 13, Arnaud Sempebré, a lawyer, was also reported missing. All of the judicial officers and the lawyer had been involved in a case in which traders and customs officers had been charged with smuggling fuel to Islamist armed groups. The abductions followed a July ruling by the Ouagadougou Court of Appeal not to proceed with a criminal case. Sempebré, the lawyer, was representing those acquitted in the case.
On October 20, men in plain clothes abducted Jean-Jacques Wendpanga Ouedraogo, a former attorney general of the Ouagadougou Court of Appeal. In August 2023, Ouedraogo had ordered into custody Amsétou Nikiéma, known as Adja, a traditional healer reportedly close to the military, who had been charged with assault and battery, among other offenses.
Accountability for Abuses
Under the military junta led by Ibrahim Traoré, Burkinabè institutions with the mandate to investigate human rights violations, including the judiciary and the National Human Rights Commission, have not had the independence to carry out their duties.
All suspects implicated in terrorism-related offenses are transferred to Ouagadougou’s High Security Prison, and all their cases are investigated and adjudicated by the Specialized Judicial Unit Against Terrorism-Related Crimes. The Unit, based in Ouagadougou, has dedicated judges, staff, and a trial chamber. However, investigations have been moving slowly, and the unit faced challenges, including lack of sufficient funds and personnel hindering its capabilities to deliver on its mandate and ensure due process.
In 2025, there was no progress in the investigations of several 2024 killings, including the massacre of 223 civilians by the military in the villages of Soro and Nondin, North region, in February 2024.