Three years after military officers promised to guide Burkina Faso back to democracy, the country is heading further in the opposite direction.

Protests over the democratically elected government’s failure to address insecurity led to Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba seizing power in January 2022. The transitional authorities agreed a two-year timeline for restoring democracy with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), but just eight months later, Captain Ibrahim Traoré led a second coup, ousting Damiba after accusing him of failing to defeat insurgents.

Traoré promised to restore civilian rule by June 2024. But a month before the deadline, the military government used a national dialogue ostensibly aimed at planning the transition to extend its power. The talks, boycotted by most political parties, resulted in a charter allowing Traoré to remain president until 2029 and run in the next election.

Traoré consolidated his power further in December 2024 when he dismissed Prime Minister Apollinaire Joachim Kyelem de Tambela and dissolved the government. This followed a similar move in neighbouring Mali, where the junta replaced its civilian prime minister in November. Tambela had served as prime minister since October 2022, leading three governments through numerous reshuffles.

In July 2025, the government dissolved the Independent National Electoral Commission, claiming it was expensive and prone to foreign influence, transferring its responsibilities to the Ministry of Territorial Administration.

Civic space under siege

As the military has entrenched its rule, civic freedoms have collapsed. The CIVICUS Monitor, a collaborative research initiative that tracks the state of civic freedoms in countries around the world, downgraded Burkina Faso’s civic space rating from obstructed to repressed, the second worst category, in December 2024. This reflected the military government’s increasing use of emergency legislation to silence dissent.

The government has cracked down on civil society activists and journalists, with tactics including arbitrary detention and forced military conscription. Four journalists were abducted in June and July 2024, with authorities later announcing they’d enlisted three of them in the army. They provided no information on the fate of the fourth.

In March 2025, authorities arrested three prominent journalists after they spoke out against press freedom restrictions. After being forcibly disappeared for 10 days, the three reappeared in a social media video wearing military uniforms, raising concerns the junta had unlawfully conscripted them. Their arrests were immediately followed by the dissolution of the Journalists’ Association.

Civil society activists have faced similar fates. In March, five members of the Sens (Servir et Non se Servir) political movement were abducted after the publication of a press release denouncing killings of civilians. The organisation’s coordinator, human rights lawyer Guy Hervé Kam, has been abducted, held incommunicado and kept in custody several times for publicly criticising military authorities.

In August 2024, security forces notified seven judges and prosecutors who’d opened legal proceedings against junta supporters that they’d been conscripted. Six reported to a military base and have not been heard from since.

Censorship has risen sharply as the junta seeks to control the national narrative. The media regulator, the High Council for Communication, has suspended multiple media outlets and programmes, often indefinitely, in retaliation for their reporting on the human rights and security situations.

Security failures

Meanwhile, the security situation used to justify the coups has dramatically worsened. Since Traoré came to power, deaths caused by militant Islamist violence have tripled, with eight of the 10 deadliest militant Islamist attacks against the military coming under his watch. Military forces are estimated to operate freely in as little as 30 per cent of the country.

The military response to insurgency has often brought atrocities against civilians. In the first half of 2024, military forces and allied militias killed at least 1,000 civilians and forcibly disappeared dozens more during counterinsurgency operations. In one horrific incident in February 2024, the military summarily executed at least 223 civilians, including 56 children, in apparent retaliation for an attack by Islamist fighters.

Conflict is forcing people to flee their homes, including to neighbouring countries. While the junta hasn’t updated its statistics on internally displaced people since March 2023, when the official tally was just over two million, independent estimates place it somewhere between three and five million.

A refugee crisis is growing at Burkina Faso’s borders. Between April and September 2025, around 51,000 refugees arrived in Mali’s Koro Cercle district, putting pressure on overwhelmed host communities with already fragile public services. Meanwhile, Burkina Faso faces mounting public health crises: since early 2025, it has experienced multiple concurrent epidemics, including hepatitis E, measles, polio and yellow fever.

From regional integration to international isolation

To avoid accountability for these failures, the junta is withdrawing from international oversight mechanisms, working in concert with neighbouring military regimes. In January, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formally completed their exit from ECOWAS, forming a rival Alliance of Sahel States. The three countries had announced their withdrawal a year before, accusing the regional body of being under the influence of foreign powers and failing to support their fight against terrorism while imposing irresponsible sanctions.

The departure from ECOWAS and its Court of Justice sidelined a key voice for accountability and democracy. ECOWAS had imposed sanctions following the coups and demanded adherence to transition timelines. The Alliance of Sahel States, in contrast, is designed to provide the three military governments with mutual political cover.

The three juntas took another move away from accountability in September when they announced their withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC). They mischaracterised the court, which seeks to hold the perpetrators of the worst human rights abuses to account, as a tool of neocolonial repression, and said they plan to develop their own justice mechanisms. The withdrawal, which takes effect in a year’s time, removes another layer of international oversight over the human rights violations all three states are committing against civilians.

Social media star

Burkina Faso’s junta says it’s fighting imperialism and defending its sovereignty in the face of western interference. Traoré, only 37 years old and never seen without his red beret, plays a strong social media game and has become an online hero to some young people in Africa and the diaspora, who see him as the kind of charismatic leader countries like Burkina Faso need to break with discredited old politics and colonial relationships. This is a reputation built on extensive disinformation and the downplaying of human rights violations ranging from the killings of civilians to the junta’s recent criminalisation of same-sex relations.

Traoré’s populist appeal and online reach enable him to portray withdrawal from ECOWAS and the ICC as bold resistance to western imperialism, and the dissolution of the electoral commission as a further necessary step to limit foreign influence. The government has also expelled French forces, in common with Mali, Niger and other countries including the Central African Republic. Distancing from the former colonial power was also reflected in the junta ditching French as the official language in January 2024.

But it’s replaced one relationship of dependence with another. In common with several other Central and West African states, Burkina Faso has increasingly turned to Russia for military support. Russian mercenaries now operate extensively alongside Burkina Faso’s military forces. Typically, these relationships help shield Vladimir Putin from international accountability as he wages bloody war in Ukraine and involve the transfer of precious mineral resources to Russia, while bringing no pressure to adhere to human rights standards.

International action needed

International bodies have documented abuses and called for adherence to transition commitments, but they haven’t provided enough support to pro-democracy forces. While Russia extends its influence, withdrawal of international funders has left civil society organisations struggling to survive. The Trump administration’s sudden termination of USAID programmes has ended crucial support for organisations working to maintain democratic space.

The democratic ideal remains alive in Burkina Faso despite the junta’s efforts to extinguish it and the disinformation that surrounds the regime. Civil society leaders continue to speak out, journalists continue to report and opposition figures continue to organise. Their courage demands tangible solidarity, beyond mere statements of concern.

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