DAKAR, Senegal– Burkina Faso suspended radio stations BBC and Voice of America over their coverage of a Human Rights Watch report on a mass killing of civilians carried out by the country’s armed forces.
Burkina Faso communications spokeswoman Tonssira Myrian Corine Sanou said late Thursday that both radio stations would be suspended for two weeks and warned other media outlets to avoid reporting on the story.
According to the report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch, the military killed 223 civilians, including 56 children, in villages accused of cooperating with militants. The report was widely covered by international media, including the Associated Press.
Burkina Faso, a once peaceful nation, has been devastated by violence that has pitted jihadists linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group against state-backed forces. Both sides have attacked civilians caught in the middle, displacing more than 2 million people, more than half of whom are children. Most attacks go unpunished and unreported in a nation governed by a repressive leadership that silences alleged dissidents.
In early April, the AP verified accounts of a Nov. 5 army attack on another village that killed at least 70 people. The details were similar: the army blamed the villagers for cooperating with the militants and massacred them, even the babies.
“VOA maintains its reporting on Burkina Faso and intends to continue to fully and fairly cover activities in the country,” the network said in a news article reporting its suspension.
The BBC did not respond to a request for comment.
On Friday, the United Nations called on Burkina Faso to revoke its suspension of the two international broadcasters.
“Restrictions on press freedom and civic space must end immediately. “Freedom of expression, including the right of access to information, is crucial in any society, and even more so in the context of the transition in Burkina Faso,” he said in a statement.
In the same statement, the UN said it had received additional reports that large numbers of civilians, including children, had been killed in several villages in Yatenga and Soum provinces in northern Burkina Faso. The AP could not immediately verify those reports.
More than 20,000 people have been killed in Burkina Faso since jihadist violence linked to Al Qaeda and ISIS first hit the West African nation nine years ago, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a nonprofit group with based in the United States.
Burkina Faso experienced two coups in 2022. Since taking power in September 2022, the junta led by Capt. Ibrahim Traoré has vowed to push back the militants. But the violence has only gotten worse, analysts say. About half of Burkina Faso’s territory remains outside government control.
Frustrated by the lack of progress over years of Western military assistance, the junta severed military ties with former colonial ruler France and turned to Russia for security support.