Report
HRW: 1,800 killed in Burkina Faso, part of an ethnic cleansing
The report's objective is to push the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open a preliminary investigation into the crimes committed by all parties involved, with explicit charges leveled against Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traoré.
More than 1,800 civilians were killed in Burkina Faso between 2023 and 2025. This grim toll is revealed in the report None Can Run Away, published by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which documents the atrocities committed by jihadists from the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM, also known by its French acronym GSIM), as well as by government forces and their allies, the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP). These abuses are largely directed against the Fulani population, which bears the brunt of the suffering because it is frequently accused of colluding with jihadist militants throughout the Sahel region.
The Burkinabe military junta, led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré since the September 2022 coup, has failed to contain the violence of armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. This is an ongoing emergency that, with “over 10,000 civilian casualties, 2,000 recorded attacks and two million internally displaced persons over the past decade,” makes Burkina Faso the country most affected by terrorism in the world in 2025, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
HRW explained that it relied on open-source intelligence and interviewed more than 450 people – both remotely and in person – across Burkina Faso, Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Mali to document the abuses. In one of the bloodiest attacks, the Burkinabe army and the VDP “killed more than 400 civilians in December 2023 in about 15 villages near the northern town of Djibo,” Human Rights Watch notes.
Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, a senior researcher with the NGO, spoke of ethnic cleansing when presenting the report, emphasizing that “the victims are unable to file complaints and obtain justice because they are terrorized.” The civilian population has no trust in the judicial system. The families of victims who did file complaints were threatened, and in some cases even the magistrates investigating the cases suffered reprisals. In particular, one magistrate who was investigating the murders of Fulani civilians was forcibly conscripted and sent to the front lines.
The report's objective is to push the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open a preliminary investigation into the crimes committed by all parties involved, with explicit charges leveled against Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traoré in his capacity as commander of the armed forces, as well as against JNIM leader Iyad Ag Ghaly and his subordinates, Ousmane and Jafar Dicko.
“President Ibrahim Traoré's culpability is an objective fact, and the words ‘None can run away’ were uttered by him personally,” explained Ilaria Allegrozzi, co-author of the report, to the French broadcaster RFI. She was referring to a meeting Traoré held with Fulani leaders in February 2023, during which he allegedly threatened “to exterminate the community, the true cause of jihadist expansion in the country.”
Just as serious, according to numerous human rights organizations, is the situation regarding the restoration of “democratic life in the country,” after the junta's closure of political parties, newspapers and local and international NGOs. “In this crisis situation, the people of Burkina Faso must forget about democracy and elections for several years,” Traoré said on Thursday, April 2, in an interview broadcast by the state radio and television network RTB.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/in-burkina-faso-la-pulizia-etnica-contro-i-peul-aizzata-dal-presidente-traore on 2026-04-05