Burkina junta expels UN official over report on child mistreatment

ABIDJAN - Burkina Faso's junta on Monday declared the top resident UN official "persona non grata" for a United Nations report which found Burkinabe fighters had violated the rights of children during the country's conflict against jihadists.

Since seizing power in a coup, the Burkinabe military government has placed international organisations and humanitarian bodies under increasing pressure, as the Sahel nation faces a widespread Islamist insurgency. The UN rejected Monday's declaration.

The military government said in a statement that UN resident humanitarian coordinator Carol Flore-Smereczniak must leave because it held her responsible for drafting the March report, which it said contained "baseless" allegations against the army and defence forces.

Titled "Children and armed conflict in Burkina Faso", the report found evidence of violations against minors including "the recruitment and use of children, the killing and maiming of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, attacks on schools, hospitals and protected persons in relation to schools and/or hospitals, the abduction of children and the denial of humanitarian access".

Most of the recorded instances of child recruitment were by the Al Qaeda-linked "Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims", known by its Arabic acronym JNIM, with the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) group also implicated.

However, the report also found that the defence and security forces, as well as its civilian auxiliaries, the Volunteers for the Defence of the Nation, were responsible for a fifth of the grave violations the UN investigators had registered.

'FALSEHOODS'

"This report, which resembles a compilation of baseless assertions and falsehoods, contains no appendices with copies of investigation reports or court rulings to support the alleged cases of violations against children attributed to the valiant Burkinabe fighters," the government added.

The report counted 2,483 grave violations against 2,255 children between July 2022 and June 2024, including 501 committed by the armed forces and Volunteers for the Defence of the Nation.

According to the investigators, members of Volunteers for the Defence of the Nation were responsible for kidnapping 23 children, as well as four of the 20 counts of rape they were able to verify.

A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP "we learned with regret" of the junta's decision which he said had no legal basis.

"The United Nations system, led by the resident coordinator, has been dedicated to working with the authorities to support development efforts and provide much needed humanitarian assistance," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, adding that "the doctrine of persona non grata does not apply to United Nations officials."

"Only the secretary-general, as the chief administrative officer of the organisation, has the authority to decide, after careful investigation, with respect to the withdrawal of any United Nations official."

Flore-Smereczniak, who is from Mauritius, was named to the post in July 2024.

She had already been criticised by Burkina Faso in February for referring to jihadist movements by the neutral terms of non-state armed groups and militias rather than as "terrorists".

The junta had previously declared one of her predecessors, Italian official Barbara Manzi, likewise "persona non grata" in December 2022.

Burkina Faso has been plagued by attacks from Islamist fighters for a decade.

Though the junta has pledged to crack down on the unrest since seizing power in a coup in September 2022, its military rulers have so far proven unable to stem the jihadist tide.

The Burkinabe army and its civilian auxiliaries are regularly accused of committing abuses against civilians.

The jihadist insurgency has killed more than 26,000 people, both civilians and soldiers, in Burkina Faso since it began more than 10 years ago.

More than half of those deaths have taken place in the past three years.