Human Rights Watch says more than 1,800 civilians have been killed by the military and armed groups since 2023.
Human Rights Watch has found that Burkina Faso’s military is committing atrocities, including ethnic cleansing of Fulani civilians, that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West African country.
In the report released on Thursday and titled ‘No One Can Run Away’, the New York-based watchdog presented its findings after conducting in-person and phone interviews with more than 450 people in Burkina Faso, Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Mali about abuses between January 2023 and August 2025.
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Using extensive open-source analysis including satellite imagery, audiovisual footage and official documents, its researchers confirmed 57 incidents involving Burkinabé military forces and allied militia known as the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP), as well as the al-Qaeda-linked armed group, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM).
Rights NGOs found that all groups were responsible for war crimes such as deliberate killings, attacks on civilians and civilian objects, looting, and forced displacement.
Its report said that of the 1,837 civilians killed in the country between January 2023 and August 2025, more than 1,200 were the result of government forces. According to the United Nations, at least two million people are estimated to have been displaced since the conflict began.
HRW said President Ibrahim Traoré, the supreme commander of the armed forces, and six senior Burkinabé military commanders may be liable for serious abuses and should be investigated.
JNIM’s supreme leader Iyad Ag Ghali, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes in Mali in 2012–2013, and four JNIM commanders, may be held accountable in terms of command responsibility for abuses by JNIM in Burkina Faso and should also be investigated.
In one of the deadliest incidents, the Burkinabé army and allied militia killed more than 400 civilians in about 16 villages near the northern city of Djibo in December 2023.
HRW said the military government, which seized power in September 2022, and its allies targeted the Fulani ethnic group because of their alleged support for armed groups, resulting in the ethnic cleansing of entire communities.
“The scale of the atrocities taking place in Burkina Faso is mind-boggling, as is the lack of global attention to this crisis,” said Philippe Bolopian, HRW executive director.
“The junta itself is committing appalling abuses, failing to hold those responsible on all sides accountable, and cutting back on reporting to obscure the suffering of civilians caught up in the violence.”
‘Shot in the back of the neck’
HRW interviewed relatives of several victims, highlighting the widespread use of threats and violence to dominate and punish communities as part of efforts to extend territorial control into rural areas.
In November 2023, government-affiliated militias killed 13 Fulani civilians, including six women and four children, in the western village of Basse.
A 41-year-old man said, “All the bodies except my son’s were kept together in the courtyard, with torn clothes over their eyes and their hands tied behind their backs… riddled with bullets.”
“My son… was lying on his stomach. He was shot in the back of the neck.”
On August 24, 2024, JNIM killed at least 133 civilians, including dozens of children, in the central city of Barsalogho.
“(JNIM fighters) fired continuously, as if they had a lot of ammunition,” said a 39-year-old man.
“People were falling like flies. They came to finish us off. They spared no one.” Five members of his family were killed in the attack.
