On February 16, the coup leader, Lt.-Col. On January 24, military officers from the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration ( Mouvement patriotique pour la sauvegarde et la restauration, MPSR), citing the worsening security situation, overthrew President Kaboré in a coup that left at least seven security force members dead.

In late 2021 and January 2022, protesters demonstrated against the government’s inability to stem the worsening violence, prompting government protest bans and internet shutdowns. The African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as well as Burkina Faso’s international partners including the European Union, France, the United Nations, and the United States denounced both coups and abuses by Islamist armed groups but were largely reluctant to denounce or push for investigations into allegations of abuse by the military and pro-government militias. Rule-of-law institutions remained weak however, the government denounced social media posts that were inciting violence against a minority group and took steps to reduce the numbers of suspects in pretrial detention. There was scant progress toward providing justice for the alleged killings of hundreds of suspects during past security forces operations. Hundreds of attacks on civilians and military targets by armed groups in 10 of Burkina Faso’s 13 regions markedly intensified a humanitarian crisis and brought the total number of people internally displaced since 2016 to nearly 2 million, or just under 10 percent of the population. The mounting civilian and military casualties and the loss of government-held territory to Islamist armed groups, which reportedly control about 40 percent of the country, spurred anti-government protests and two military coups, the first of which, in January, overthrew President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, who was re-elected in 2020.

Burkina Faso’s human rights situation seriously deteriorated in 2022 as deadly attacks by Islamist armed groups against civilians surged, military forces and pro-government militias committed violations during counterterrorism operations, and political instability deepened as a result of two military coups.

Human rights in armed conflict