Burkina Faso army, jihadists have killed more than 1,800 civilians since 2023, HRW says

Submission statement: An update on the situation in Burkina Faso with an extensive report by Human Rights Watch documenting the massacres carried out in one of the most neglected crises in the world.

Burkina Faso has been grappling with jihadist insurgencies for a decade, fueled by domestic political instability, endemic poverty and the implantation of international terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda (Jnim) and IS in the Sahel. After years of civilian rule following the 2014 revolution against the dictatorship of Blaise Compaoré, the Burkinabè army took power in two coups in 2022 and has since been ruling the country under a military junta headed by Captain Ibrahim Traoré.

Under Traoré's rule, Burkina Faso has moved away from its traditional partners of France and Ivory Coast, and concluded security partnerships with Russia and their allied military juntas in Mali and Niger. Far from curbing the violence, the heavy-handed response of the army led to a sharp escalation of the conflict with IS and Jnim, fueling a vicious circle of brutality, indiscriminate reprisals and ethnic-based mass killings.

Based on hundreds of witnesses, HRW has established that at least 582 civilians have been killed by Jnim and other jihadi groups, while the army and their auxiliaries of the VDP were responsible for at least 1,255 civilian deaths between January 2023 and April 2025.

HRW documents how the Fulani, a nomadic pastoralist people numbering about 2 million in Burkina Faso, were singled out by the Burkinabè government and assimilated to jihadists: "Two new, concerning concepts have emerged under this government – the first is the idea of "Zero Fulani" invented by pro-junta influencers who led a campaign on social media calling for the full elimination of the Fulani. The second is the concept of "war of independence" launched by the president. He declared that we were no longer at war with terrorism, but engaged in a war of independence that can only be won by fighting the enemies of the state. Which means that us Fulani are now considered as domestic enemies", per a Burkinabè human rights lawyer quoted in the report.

The organization nominally identifies 5 jihadist leaders and 20 junta officials as responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and recommends international legal action and sanctions against these individuals.