This dyad belongs to the conflict Burkina Faso: Government
Summary of conflict Burkina Faso: Government
Between its 1960 independence and 2016, Burkina Faso was relatively peaceful in comparison with some of its regional neighbors. However, a brief intrastate conflict over government erupted in 1987, when the Popular Front carried out a coup d’état that overturned the government of Captain Thomas Sankara, killing him and several others. The leader of the coup, Blaise Compaoré, subsequently held on to power until 2014, when he, in turn, was forced by the military to step down. After the brief 1987 conflict, the country was spared further violence for almost three decades. However, Burkina Faso eventually ended up following the same path as several of its neighbors, as the Mali-based and al-Qaida-affiliated JNIM alliance turned its attention to Burkina Faso in 2017, commencing operations in the northern part of the country. The following years, violence increased continuously.
In 2025, the levels of violence escalated once again – this time from an already high level in 2024 – and the year saw over 3000 fatalities in the conflict. This was the second highest notation ever. As in previous years, JNIM remained a credible threat to the regime, and carried out attacks over large parts of the country, effectively besieging government-held population centers. The conflict continued to be characterized by drone strikes, numerous ambushes as well as large-scale attacks on military camps. A notable surge in JNIM attacks occurred in the wake of the so-called Solenzo massacre; a large-scale attack on the Fulani population by the army, in March. This caused the group to launch revenge a series of deadly revenge attacks across the country.
Thomas Sankara and ‘La révolution’
On 5 August 1960, Upper Volta (renamed Burkina Faso in 1984) declared its independence from France through Maurice Yaméogo, who became the country’s first president. After independence, several coups d’états ensued – a majority of which were bloodless – and the country endured several extended periods of military rule. In 1980, Captain Thomas Sankara emerged as a leading political figure, serving briefly as secretary of state in the government of Colonel Saye Zerbo, and later as prime minister in Jean-Baptiste Ouedraogo’s government before being replaced, accused of plotting against the president. A rift had begun to emerge between older and younger military officers; Sankara, with his widespread popularity and popular appeal particularly among the young Burkinabè, became a key figure in the latter group. In August 1983, Sankara seized power in a military coup. Libya is said to have supported Sankara’s coup through the shipment of arms and ammunition via northern Ghana. Sankara succeeded in assuaging an immediate counter-coup, and announced his new government, composed mainly of civilians on 24 August 1983.
Sankara’s coup, and often more broadly his period in power (1983-1987), is referred to as ‘La révolution’. He pursued programs to eradicate corruption and official extravagance, to improve public health care, to make the country agriculturally self-reliant, and to support the rights of women, and he change the country’s name from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, meaning the “community of upright people”. Vocally anti-imperialist, Sankara had strained relations with many members of the international community, and cultivated ties with radical powers at the time, such as Ghana and Libya. In the history of Burkina Faso, Sankara has served as something of a founding father, famous for his charismatic personality and rhetorical style, and he continues to serve as an important political reference in Burkinabè life.
The ousting of Sankara
In 1987, rumors began to emerge of disagreements between Sankara and several members of the country’s supreme political organ at the time, CNR, including long-time ally and friend Captain Blaise Compaoré. At the time, a series of unpopular measures coupled with increased political oppression had eroded the stability and popularity of the Sankara regime. Also contributing to Sankara’s increasing unpopularity were the CDRs (Comités de Défense de la Révolution; Committees for the Defence of the Revolution), created and used to maintain control. In effect, the CDRs became a tool with which the government could spy on and intimidate the civilian population, eroding local decision-making mechanisms. Further on, the collapse of an alliance of political parties left Sankara increasingly isolated, and his rule severely weakened.
On 15 October 1987, Compaoré, backed by key figures Commandant Jean-Baptiste Lingani and Captain Henri Zongo, led an assault on the presidential palace in Ouagadougou. The fifth in the country’s history, the 1987 military coup was by far the most violent. In total, nearly 100 people were reported to have been killed. Among them were Sankara and a dozen of his guards and closest advisors; witnesses reported seeing them buried outside of Ouagadougou on 16 October. A mutinous unit of soldiers caused some instability in Koudougou, a town in central Burkina, but did not lead to any fatal confrontation. Compaoré and his new movement Popular Front (Front Populaire, FP) insisted that Sankara’s death had been an accident. This was, however, widely dismissed as unlikely; most witness-statements describing the actions leading to the killings indicated a highly organized operation. Compaoré also insisted the take-over had been a preventive act to save his and his allies’ lives. Allegedly, Sankara was intending to have him and other key figures arrested and subsequently killed at a CNR meeting scheduled for the day of the take-over.
Turmoil followed the coup, as the new FP-led government struggled to assert its authority. Calls for marches to support the new leadership were largely ignored; instead, students protested the violent overtake and mourners gathered at Sankara’s make-shift grave. On 31 October, Compaoré officially established a new government, formally dissolving the CNR and replacing it with the FP. Its composition nevertheless remained similar to its predecessor. Compaoré, officially named as the new head of state and government, announced that he would strive to “rectify” the 1983 revolution. He would, however, have to struggle to gain national and regional legitimacy.
Violence in Mali spreads and spawns a new phase of conflict in Burkina Faso
Long seen as a beacon of stability in a trouble-hit region, Burkina Faso held its first democratic elections in 2015. However, instead of cementing its progress, the following years saw the country immersed in organized violence, as two state-based conflicts erupted, and with them, escalating levels of one-sided violence, carried out by several actors.
The onset of this next phase of conflict over government power was to a large degree imported, but it could take off and escalate because of conducive local factors. Focusing first on the regional context, the conflict in Burkina had its beginning across the border in Mali, where a range of jihadist groups fought a prolonged conflict against the government in Bamako. In March 2017, several of these groups (AQIM, Ansar Dine and FLM) joined forces and created the al-Qaida-loyal alliance JNIM. The new alliance had more far-reaching goals than solely an Islamic state in Mali, propagating for jihad in all Sahelian countries. Subsequently, already some months after its formation, the group began launching attacks across the border in Niger, as well as in northern Burkina Faso.
At this point, northern Burkina was already home to Ansaroul Islam, a local islamist group with strong links to one of the constituent parts of JNIM, FLM. The group’s leader, Malam Ibrahim Dicko, had even fought with FLM for some time, before establishing his own group in late 2016, and turning his focus to Burkina Faso. While Ansaroul Islam was clearly opposed to the Burkinabe government, and carried out attacks on the country’s armed forces as well as on civilians, the group could not be included in UCDP data on state-based conflict, since it is not entirely clear what the objectives of the group were (see the Ansaroul Islam actor description to read more about this). However, by 2018, most analysts seem to agree that Ansaroul Islam had been incorporated into JNIM, functioning as a unit (markaz) of the latter’s brigades (katiba) operating out of central Mali.
As the relatively quick emergence of Ansaroul Islam indicates, the northern part of Burkina Faso was a region fertile for anti-government rhetoric. There were many reasons for this, including a lack of trust in the central government spawned by a feeling of neglect, which in turn stemmed from a shortage of jobs and infrastructure, and large-scale government corruption. Furthermore, the advent of islamist groups fighting the government in Burkina Faso fanned the flames of already existing tensions between ethnic groups in the northern part of the country; as the jihadists were perceived to be allied to the pastoralist Fulani, the former group was blamed when jihadists attacked other communities such as the agricultural Mossi, Foulsé and Songhai. Finding themselves the target of both military and communal attacks, it was thus specifically among the Fulani community that the islamist were able to recruit local fighters.
Fighting escalates and spreads
While JNIM carried out its first attack on Burkinabe soil already in July 2017, it was not until the following year that violence between the group and the Burkinabe army escalated to the extent that the 25 battle-related deaths threshold was crossed and the conflict was recorded as active in UCDP data. During 2018, the Mali connection was clear in that the group carried out a large proportion of its attacks in regions bordering Malian; Sahel in the far north, Nord, to the west of Sahel, and Boucle du Mouhoun, west of Nord. JNIM began carrying out a range of attacks, the types of which would become familiar over the following years: planting land mines, conducting ambushes on military convoys as well as attacks on military- and gendarme positions. Furthermore, specific public figures, such as individual police officers or local politicians were targeted and killed. In March 2018, the group also brazenly carried out a twin attack in Burkina’s capital, Ouagadougou, targeting the French Embassy and the Army Headquarter.
Also in 2018, JNIM began establishing bases in the country’s Est region, where it was joined by IS regional wing ISGS. The chaotic situation in the region meant that it was impossible to separate between the different groups in a vast majority of attacks. Thus, while only a handful of events could be safely attributed to JNIM, this is most likely only a small fraction of the actual number.
During the following five years, JNIM continued to expand its area of operation in all directions, carrying out attacks also in Centre Nord, just south of Sahel and further afield, in the country’s southern regions bordering Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo and Benin. Furthermore, by 2022 the group’s rivals and bitter enemies in the Sahel branch of IS had been pushed back and were mainly ensconced in Sahel’s Oudalan and Seno provinces, and it became clear that it was in fact JNIM that was responsible for a vast majority of attacks in the country’s Est region. By 2023, almost all regions of the country were affected by the conflict to some extent. While the government made frequent use of drone strikes against Islamist fighters (albeit clearly hitting civilian targets on multiple occasions), JNIM carried out multiple ambushes, oftentimes targeting the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland (VDPs), an auxiliary unit to the armed forces that had been created in 2020. In the more recent years, JNIM carried out increasingly complex and large-scale attacks on military camps, leading to big battles, where both sides inflicted heavy losses on one another. Notably, in November 2021, JNIM carried out an attack on a gendarme post in Inata town in the northern Soum province, killing some 53 gendarmes, the highest toll recorded in the rank of the security forces in a single attack. Another noteworthy attack was carried out on 26 September 2022, when JNIM ambushed a convoy heading to the besieged town Djibo, causing 27 fatalities among the security forces.
Against the backdrop of the deteriorating security situation, the year 2022 saw two military coups (neither of which caused fighting that crossed the 25 battle-related deaths threshold), both in reaction to the government’s inability to deal with the jihadist threat effectively. Spawned by escalating violence in both the conflict against JNIM, and against the Sahel branch of IS at the end of 2021, the first coup d’état was carried out on 23-24 January, when democratically elected President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was ousted from power by a group of soldiers. Calling themselves the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration, the junta gave the president’s inability to contain the Islamist conflicts and as the reason for the coup. A few days later, the junta restored the constitution and appointed Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba as interim president. Only eight months later, on 30 September, Damiba was ousted in a new coup, and Captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power. It is widely believed that it was the above-mentioned ambush on the convoy heading to Djibo that was the trigger for the second coup.
While the bold stated goal of the junta that seized power in September 2022 had been to change the tide in the conflicts against the Islamists, and to recapture the 40 % of the country's territory controlled by them, this was far from achieved the following year. Instead, violence in the conflict escalated markedly for the fourth consecutive year. Furthermore, the rise in intensity became increasingly steep, more than doubling between 2021 and 2022, only to escalate by 137 % in 2023, when almost 3800 fatalities were incurred in the fighting. Not only did the armed confrontations multiply and turn increasingly deadly during the year, they also continued to spread geographically, devastating areas that had previously been relatively spared, such as Centre Est’s Boulgou and Koulpélogo provinces, bordering Ghana and Togo. Although the fatality numbers deceased the following year, developments remained alarming. The armed encounters were less frequent than in 2023, but the year saw the deadliest instances of fighting yet, with the army suffering unprecedented death tolls in ambushes and attacks. While earlier years had seen one or two spectacular attacks annually, in 2024 they multiplied. From late March through early August, JNIM carried out a string of deadly attacks on the army and VDP, in completely different areas of the country. The two most devastating attacks took place in Yagha and Gourma provinces. In early June, JNIM overran an army camp in Mansila, Yagha, killing more than 100 soldiers, before moving on to attack the civilian population. In early August, the group carried out its most deadly attacks to date, when the group hit a military convoy carrying some 1000 civilians between Ougarou and Boungou towns, in the country’s Est region. Having taken a short-cut through a forested area, the convoy was caught in the ambush and the subsequent fighting was very intense, leaving some 150 soldiers dead, as well as more than 40 civilians. While the army called in drones, their effectiveness was very limited given the forest cover.
In 2025, the levels of violence escalated once again and the year saw just below 3000 fatalities in the conflict, the second highest notation ever. JNIM significantly escalated its military campaign, shifting from dispersed insurgent tactics toward more coordinated, large-scale assaults on military positions, including the overrunning of key bases in the northern and eastern regions. Furthermore, the group increasingly engaged in forms of local governance and consolidated control over rural areas, effectively besieging government-held population centers. The overall intensification of the conflict was the result of numerous peaks in violence, spread out over large parts of the country. The most violent period of the year was March through June, when multiple regions experienced near-simultaneous spikes in violence. In the Sahel and Centre-Nord regions, insurgent operations included coordinated attacks on military outposts and VDP positions, often resulting in high casualty events. This period also coincided with increased military operations by state forces, generating cycles of retaliation. A massacre of at least 130 Fulani civilians by state forces in March, in Solenzo, Boucle du Mouhoun region served as a trigger event for the escalation of the conflict. It generated immediate JNIM reprisal operations, such as the attack on Diapaga in the East region, which killed between 50 and 60 soldiers and militia. Another major event during the year was JNIM’s attack on Djibo, the provincial capital of Soum, which had been under siege for several years. On 11 May, hundreds of JNIM fighters attacked the town, temporarily overrunning parts of the town and the military base and killing around 50 soldiers as well as many civilians.
Abuses by both sides
Since the start of the conflict, there have been increasingly vocal criticism of the conduct of both parties, from actors such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Already in 2018, reports emerged of the Burkinabe military’s heavy handedness with regard to the civilian population (for more on this, see Burkina Faso – Civilians). Large number of alleged extrajudicial killings, as well as abuse of suspects in custody have marred counter-terrorism operations. Bodies of people last seen in the custody of the army became a common occurrence in especially Soum province, in Sahel region. Also JNIM has been involved in bloody massacres in many parts of the country.
The two parties have become locked in a pattern of targeting civilians perceived to support the opponent, both sides carrying committing abuses. A major pillar in the government’s military strategy is the recruitment- and use of VDPs. The force was set up in 2020 as a way to improve local self-defense and when the new junta came to power, it increased the use of the civilian auxiliaries even more, opening a campaign to recruit an additional 50 000. This led to a surge in attacks on villages that JNIM accused of supporting and/or contributing to the force. The government, for its part, viewed villages not contributing as jihadi supporters, whereby they were legitimate targets of attack. Another factor contributing to mark civilians as jihadi supporters were their mere ethnicity; the army was repeatedly reported to be acting as if all Fulani were jihadists, and meting out collective punishment when the population did not assist them in providing intelligence on the whereabouts of JNIM fighters.
