BURKINA Faso has suspended the BBC and Voice of America radio networks from broadcasting after they aired a rights report accusing the army of attacks on civilians in its battle against jihadists.
The British and US broadcasters are the latest international media organisations to be targeted since Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in the West African country in a September 2022 coup.
“The programmes of these two international radio networks broadcasting from Ouagadougou have been suspended for a period of two weeks,” Burkina’s communications authority, the CSC, announced late on Thursday.
It said the decision had been taken because BBC Africa and the VOA had aired and also published a report on their digital platforms “accusing the Burkina army of abuses against the civilian population”.
The CSC said the report contained “hasty and biased declarations without tangible proof against the Burkinabe army”.
International NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday that soldiers in Burkina Faso’s jihadist-hit north had killed at least 223 villagers, including 56 children, in two revenge attacks on February 25.
Burkinabe authorities, contacted by AFP, have not commented on the accusations.
The country has been battling attacks from groups linked to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State since a jihadist insurgency swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015.
Since then, around 20,000 people have been killed in Burkina Faso and around two million forced to flee their homes.
VOA said on Friday it had sought reactions to the HRW report “from several Burkinabe officials” but had received no response and intended “to continue to fully and fairly cover activities in the country”.
