A devastating new report by Human Rights Watch has documented the deaths of more than 1,800 civilians in Burkina Faso since the military junta took power in 2022, with government forces and their civilian auxiliaries responsible for more than twice as many civilian deaths as those attributed to Islamist militant groups. The report, titled "None Can Run Away," catalogues war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides in the conflict — and calls urgently for accountability.
The findings, released in early April 2026, represent one of the most comprehensive human rights documentation efforts in Burkina Faso’s recent history and lay bare a conflict in which civilians are trapped between multiple armed forces, all of which have shown disregard for human life.
What the Report Documents
Human Rights Watch researchers spent months interviewing survivors, witnesses, local civil society organisations, journalists, and officials. The picture that emerges is of a conflict that has spiralled beyond any possibility of contained military response.
Since 2023, Burkina Faso’s security forces — including army units and the Volontaires pour la Défense de la Patrie (VDP), a government-backed civilian militia — have carried out mass killings in villages across multiple regions. HRW documented incidents in which entire communities were targeted on suspicion of sympathy with jihadist groups, often based on little or no evidence.
"The army and its auxiliaries have killed more civilians than jihadist groups," the report states, presenting data that reverses the official narrative promoted by the junta that military rule would bring security. ACLED figures cited in the HRW report corroborate the finding: civilian deaths at the hands of security forces increased by 70% between 2022 and 2023 alone.
War Crimes by All Sides
The HRW report is careful to document atrocities committed by all parties. Islamist militant groups — primarily those linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) — have killed large numbers of civilians through targeted assassinations, executions, and attacks on villages deemed to be cooperating with government forces.
But the report’s most damning findings concern the state. HRW documents specific incidents in which Burkinabè army units carried out revenge attacks on communities, burning homes, executing men, and in some cases using surveillance drones to identify and eliminate suspected informants. The methods used by the VDP civilian auxiliaries are described as particularly brutal.
The Context: A Country at War
Burkina Faso has been battling a jihadist insurgency since 2016, when fighters first began launching attacks from Mali. The conflict intensified dramatically after the military coups of 2022, which removed President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré and installed a junta that subsequently cancelled elections and consolidated power under military rule.
The juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger — which have formed a mutual defence pact known as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) — have all justified their rule by reference to the security crisis. Despite billions of dollars in security spending and foreign military assistance, the insurgency has expanded rather than contracted.
International Response
The African Union and ECOWAS have issued statements calling for investigations into documented abuses but have been largely ineffective in pressuring the junta. France withdrew its military contingent in 2023 after the junta ordered it out, and the joint AES defence arrangement has filled the security vacuum with forces whose human rights record is, by multiple accounts, no better than that of the departing French troops.
A Civilian Crisis Without End
Beyond the death toll, the humanitarian consequences are catastrophic. The HRW report estimates that more than two million people in Burkina Faso are now internally displaced — a country of approximately 22 million people where one in ten is now displaced from their home. Access to food, healthcare, and education in large parts of the north and east of the country has collapsed.
The report’s title — "None Can Run Away" — captures the绝望 of a civilian population caught between forces that view them as either threats or collateral. With the junta intensifying its grip on power and the insurgency showing no signs of retreat, the crisis in Burkina Faso appears set to deepen.