Burkina Faso expels UN official over child abuse report

Burkina Faso’s marred human rights record has surfaced yet again with a UN report that the junta has sought to bury.

Carol Flore-Smereczniak was declared “persona non grata” because of her role in drafting a March report about children caught up in the country’s jihadist conflict, according to the BBC on August 19.

Covering a two-year period, the study details more than 2,000 cases of documented child recruitment, killings, sexual violence, and abuse –incriminating government soldiers, insurgent members, and civilian defense forces.

The findings reflect the country’s bloody struggle with factionalized insurgencies. Since 2015, insurgents associated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have waged an insurgency that has killed thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes.

Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s military government rose to power in September 2022, promising to eliminate the terror threat within “two to three months”, but has since struggled to uphold these commitments.

The government said it had not been consulted by the UN and dismissed the report as unfounded. It claimed that the report had not cited any documentation or court rulings to support the alleged cases of violations against children attributed to Burkinabé fighters.

Flore-Smereczniak was appointed in July 2024, more than 18 months after her predecessor was expelled by the junta in December 2022 for publishing a blog post describing how the crisis was affecting education and health services, forcing many to shut down.

Traoré’s anti-Western sentiments, rejecting the assistance of former colonial power France in favour of Russia, have also raised some concerns over the government’s ability to quash the militants.

By June of 2025, the jihadist group JNIM said it had carried out over 280 attacks in Burkina Faso – double the number for the same period in 2024, according to data verified by the BBC

BBC/ Maghrebi