Burkina junta declares UN official 'persona non grata'

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Burkina Faso's junta on Monday declared the top resident UN official "persona non grata" for a United Nations report which found that armed groups were recruiting children to fight in the country's jihadist conflict.

Since seizing power in a coup, the Burkinabe junta has placed international organisations and humanitarian bodies under increasing pressure, as the Sahel nation faces a widespread jihadist insurgency.

The military government said in a statement that UN resident humanitarian coordinator Carol Flore-Smereczniak must leave because of her "responsibility" in drafting the March report, which it charged conveyed "serious and false information".

Titled "Children and armed conflict in Burkina Faso", the report found 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 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.

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

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 ruling 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.

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