Non-international armed conflicts in Burkina Faso

IHL requires that medical personnel be protected and not attacked, and serious violations may amount to war crimes. In the NIAC between Burkina Faso and JNIM, attacks on medical personnel were reported on multiple occasions, including killings in several regions. Some incidents were attributed to State forces or the VPD on allegations of collaboration with JNIM, while others involved JNIM as the perpetrator. These attacks occurred amid broader insecurity affecting medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers, compounded by negative sentiment and false information on social media portraying doctors as terrorist accomplices and alleging that a humanitarian organization supported terrorist groups.

IEDs posed a grave and persistent threat to civilians across Burkina Faso and significantly undermined the delivery of aid to people living in besieged areas. Reported patterns indicate worsening use, with incidents in 2024 causing over 180 civilian deaths, including many women and children, and over one hundred detonations recorded in early 2025. IEDs were reported to have caused more civilian than military victims. When deployed in populated areas or locations frequently accessed by civilians, their effects are likely to be indiscriminate, engaging the IHL principles of distinction and proportionality and precautions in attack. Armed groups used victim-activated, command-detonated and time-delay devices, with JNIM alleged to have placed them along supply routes and near populated areas, including by means of armed drones. Treaty and customary IHL prohibits their indiscriminate use and require that all feasible precautions be taken to minimize their effect on civilians. Burkina Faso is also obligated to clear and destroy all anti-personnel mines on its territory under the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.

Non-State armed groups controlling a substantial share of national territory continued to restrict humanitarian access and besiege or otherwise isolate large portions of the civilian population. Moreover, attacks on medical personnel and facilities compelled humanitarian organizations to cease operating, while spiralling inflation and declining agricultural production fuelled acute food insecurity, leaving millions at risk of starvation. Armed groups used sieges to consolidate territorial control, weaken military and civilian resistance, and impose governance, isolating towns, restricting access to farmland, destroying infrastructure, sabotaging telecommunications, and obstructing essential services. As a result, besieged areas faced severe food shortages, collapsed health services, and deaths from treatable disease, with water system damage and agricultural restrictions aggravating the crisis, leaving millions at risk of starvation. Siege tactics are constrained by the prohibition of starvation of civilian population as a method of warfare and rules on humanitarian relief and evacuation.

Forced displacement in Burkina Faso reached acute levels amid a serious and protracted humanitarian situation. By mid-2025, millions were internally displaced and additional refugees, mainly from Mali, sought asylum, with calculations putting the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) at between 3 million and 5 million, comprising mainly women and children. Violence triggered further large-scale movements in early 2025, leaving many households without shelter, food, or medical care. Testimonies describe armed groups killing men, seizing civilian property, and ordering women and children to leave, while civilians trapped in besieged towns attempted to escape blockades associated with hunger and fear. These dynamics engage the customary IHL prohibition on ordering displacement unless required for civilians’ security or imperative military reasons, and the duty to ensure that any displacement remains temporary, that basic needs are met, and that family unity is preserved.

Non-State armed groups, notably JNIM and the ISSP, were reported to routinely restrict humanitarian access by besieging or isolating towns and obstructing essential services, with frequent attacks on medical personnel and facilities in the Est and Sahel further forcing humanitarian organizations to scale back operations. Humanitarian assistance was described as sporadically delivered by air and insufficient, while access by road was impeded by armed group attacks on convoys attempting to reach besieged areas. The ISSP claimed most attacks on convoys. These practices were presented as engaging IHL rules on humanitarian relief, precautions and proportionality in attack, and siege tactics.

More than 5,000 schools remained closed in Burkina Faso due to violence, undermining the right to education. Schools were among the civilian objects significantly destroyed during the period under review. Evidence indicates that JNIM, in its efforts to extend control across the country, frequently fired on or burned down schools as part of wider attacks on civilian infrastructure. Moreover, continued attacks on schools by both the VDP and non-State armed groups caused many to close. Under customary IHL, civilian objects, which are all objects that are not military objectives and that generally include schools, are protected against attack.

Attacks against Health Facilities

Hostilities in populated areas and near civilian infrastructure in Burkina Faso led to significant destruction of civilian objects, including medical units. Medical facilities and activities were regularly attacked across five regions, particularly in the Est and Sahel, most often involving JNIM fighters burning down or firing upon health infrastructure. In July 2024, in Djibo, an armed group repeatedly shot at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) offices, and a health facility was partially burned down while another was vandalized. Continued insecurity prompted a temporary suspension of MSF activities in Djibo, while widespread closures and reduced functioning of health facilities deprived millions of access to healthcare. Under IHL, medical units and transports must be protected and not attacked, and serious violations may amount to war crimes.

Persistent patterns of inhuman or degrading treatment in detention by governmental forces occurred in a context of unlawful deprivation of liberty during a NIAC. Civilians were frequently arrested on accusations of affiliation with armed groups, and testimonies described beatings, forced undressing and humiliation during custody. Concerns extended to arbitrary arrests affecting civil society actors, journalists and magistrates who sought to draw attention to the deteriorating security situation, with repression including enforced requisition to the military and detention of members of the judiciary. Under IHL, detainees must be treated humanely at all times, torture and other ill-treatment are absolutely prohibited.

Arbitrary deprivation of liberty was repeatedly attributed to Burkina Faso’s governmental forces, often on the basis of alleged affiliation with armed groups. Arrests reportedly affected civilians and involved intimidation and humiliation, and were extended to civil society actors, journalists and magistrates who sought to draw attention to the deteriorating security situation. Authorities publicly framed detention as the suppression of alleged terrorists or anti-Muslimism and of those acting against the interests of the nation, and published lists of sought persons. Repression further included arrests followed by enforced requisition to the military and detention of members of the judiciary. Under IHL, arbitrary deprivation of liberty is prohibited.

Enforced disappearances by Burkina Faso’s State forces reportedly recurred, in particular affecting civil society actors, journalists and magistrates who sought to draw attention to the deteriorating security situation. These practices occurred alongside arbitrary arrests and detention, carried out on accusations of affiliation with armed groups and framed as suppressing alleged terrorists or anti-Muslimism and those acting against the interests of the nation. While some detained individuals were released in July 2025, the fate and whereabouts of many others remained unknown at the time of writing. Under IHL, enforced disappearance, understood as secret detention or the failure to disclose a detainee’s fate or whereabouts, is prohibited and also violates the obligation to register persons deprived of liberty in NIAC and families’ right to know their fate.

Pillage and the unlawful destruction of civilian property are prohibited under IHL, with pillage defined as theft of private property by members of armed forces or armed groups and potentially constituting a war crime. Evidence pointed to breaches by both JNIM and VDP. JNIM’s efforts to establish control were associated with the burning or looting of shops, petrol stations, a pharmacy, and health facilities, as well as repeated pillage of medical supplies at gunpoint. Allegations also concerned VDP looting of livestock in operations aimed at re-establishing control in areas previously held by armed groups, amid concerns that such conduct largely went unpunished within a broader narrative of a war on terrorism.

In Burkina Faso, forced recruitment was carried out under the authorities’ general mobilization decree of April 2023, used as the legal basis for enforced requisition to the military. Individuals, including journalists and magistrates, were arrested and then forcibly dispatched to the front to fight against armed groups. Journalists who voiced concerns about systematic intimidation and kidnapping were subjected to months of enforced requisition before some were released. The practice contributed to an atmosphere in which dissenting voices have the choice between exile, prison, or deployment to the front and likely death.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence in connection with armed conflict are prohibited and constitute serious violations of IHL. In Burkina Faso, the armed conflicts were marked by repeated sexual and gender-based violence, primarily affecting women and girls, with harms exacerbated by ongoing hostilities, displacement, and broader economic instability. Abductions of women and girls, often attributed to non-State armed groups, reportedly increased sharply in 2024 and into 2025. Testimonies described captured women and girls being traded between armed groups and used as sex slaves or coerced into combat. The United Nations also attributed instances of rape of girls to members of the VDP.

Children in Burkina Faso remained disproportionately affected by the armed conflicts, with extensive violations of their protection under IHL. Many schools remain closed due to violence, undermining children’s right to education. Multiple forms of harm against children were widely documented, including killing and maiming, abduction, rape and other sexual violence, and ill-treatment. Burkina Faso’s armed forces, the VDP, JNIM, and the ISSP were all reported as responsible for children being killed or maimed. Despite the IHL prohibition on recruiting and using children under 15 in hostilities and Burkina Faso’s treaty commitments setting 18 as the minimum age for participation, recruitment, and use of children, particularly by non-State armed groups, reportedly continued, including training in weapons and explosives and deployment in combat and suicide missions.

IHL requires parties to an armed conflict to search for, collect, and evacuate the dead without delay, prevent despoilment and mutilation, treat remains respectfully, and identify bodies whenever possible. Parties must also record and transmit information on the dead to enable families to know the fate of their relatives, and ensure dignified burial or cremation, in accordance with the deceased’s rites, with graves respected and maintained. In Burkina Faso, accusations emerged that members of the State armed forces consumed body parts of deceased jihadist fighters, with social media videos reportedly depicting soldiers handling and eating portions of corpses. If substantiated, such conduct would constitute a grave breach of the rules protecting the dead and amount to war crimes.

In Burkina Faso, shrinking civic space and successive media bans in 2024 further eroded press freedom. State organs and agents subjected journalists, lawyers and activists to intimidation, arbitrary arrest and detention, fostering a climate of fear and weakening civil society, including through the disbanding of the journalists’ association. Journalists who voiced concerns about intimidation and kidnappings attributed to the authorities were arrested and subjected to enforced requisition to the military, with some later released while the fate of others remained unknown. The authorities also circulated lists of individuals sought for alleged terrorist association that included prominent journalists and activists alongside JNIM leaders. Journalists and activists benefit from IHL protection as civilians.