More than 1,800 civilians have been killed in Burkina Faso since 2023 in a grinding conflict that has seen both the country’s security forces and jihadist insurgent groups accused of serious abuses against civilian populations, according to a detailed investigation by Human Rights Watch. The report paints a devastating picture of a nation caught between two sets of perpetrators — one uniformed and officially sanctioned, the other insurgent and ideologically driven — both inflicting grave harm on ordinary people with little protection from the state.
The killings span dozens of incidents across multiple regions of Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African nation that was once celebrated as a model of democratic governance in the Sahel. Since 2019, the country has been in a downward spiral driven by the expansion of jihadist groups with links to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and by the military government’s heavy-handed — and often indiscriminate — security response.
A Conflict With No Clear Front Lines
Unlike conventional wars, Burkina Faso’s conflict is diffuse, with violence erupting in villages, on roads, in markets, and at schools with little warning. Human Rights Watch documented incidents in which security forces summarily executed civilians, burned homes, and forced villagers to flee — actions that deepened resentment against the state and drove recruitment for the very groups they seek to suppress.
The Collapse of State Authority
Burkina Faso’s military junta, which seized power in a 2022 coup, has staked its legitimacy almost entirely on ending the insurgency. But the violence has only intensified. The UN estimates that more than two million people in Burkina Faso are now internally displaced, a figure that has tripled in less than two years.
A Warning From History
Burkina Faso’s trajectory mirrors that of neighboring Mali, where a similar conflict produced similar abuses, drove similar international realignment, and ultimately proved resistant to purely military solutions. The 1,800 dead are not abstractions. They are named, remembered, mourned — and the question of how many more will follow remains terrifyingly open.