On November 1, armed Islamists killed around 10 civilians from Dambam village on their way to a local market near the border with Niger. Their attacks largely targeted communities which had formed local civil defense groups. Their presence and attacks on military targets and civilians expanded from Burkina Faso’s north and east into the south and west. Islamist armed groups allied with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Greater Sahara killed over 350 civilians. The government implemented a de facto ban on visits by journalists to internally displaced camps, and pressured journalists and victims for reporting on allegations of sex in exchange for humanitarian relief.īurkina Faso’s international partners including the European Union, France, the United Nations, and the United States readily denounced abuses by Islamist armed groups but were largely reluctant to denounce or push for investigations into those by pro-government forces. The government struggled to care for the growing number of displaced.Ī 2019 law criminalizing some aspects of reporting on security force operations dampened media freedom, with journalists reluctant to report on allegations of abuses by pro-government forces. Rule-of-law institutions remained weak however, the government took steps to reduce the numbers of suspects in pre-trial detention.Īttacks by armed groups caused over 237,000 people to flee their homes in 2021, bringing the total number of internally displaced people since 2016 to over 1.4 million, or 6 percent of the population. There was scant progress toward providing justice for the alleged killings of hundreds of suspects during past security forces operations, though a few trials of crimes by alleged Islamist fighters took place. Several activists and members of the political opposition were questioned or detained after criticizing the government’s response to the growing insecurity. The violence, including the June massacre of over 135 civilians in Solhan, the single deadliest attack in the country since the outbreak of armed conflict in 2016, led to demonstrations calling for an end to the bloodshed.

The government of President Roch Marc Kaboré, elected in November 2020 to a second term, struggled during 2021 to address the overlapping crises. During 2021, there was a marked deterioration in Burkina Faso’s human rights and security situation as attacks and atrocities by armed Islamist groups surged, unlawful killings by state security forces and pro-government militias during counterterrorism operations continued, and the humanitarian situation worsened.

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