Burkina Faso’s military government on Monday declared the United Nations’ top official in the country, Carol Flore-Smereczniak, persona non grata following the release of a UN report alleging the recruitment of children by armed groups in the country’s jihadist conflict.
The junta accused the UN resident humanitarian coordinator of bearing “responsibility” for the March report, which also cited violations by the Burkinabe army and its civilian auxiliaries, the Volunteers for the Defence of the Nation (VDP). Authorities dismissed the findings as “baseless” and demanded Flore-Smereczniak’s departure.
The report, titled “Children and Armed Conflict in Burkina Faso”, documented grave abuses against minors, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, killings, maiming, sexual violence, abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access.
Most cases of child recruitment were attributed to Al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS). However, investigators also found that Burkina Faso’s defence and security forces and the VDP were responsible for about one-fifth of the violations, including kidnappings and verified cases of rape.
The junta rejected these claims, stating: “This report, which resembles a compilation of baseless assertions and falsehoods, contains no evidence or court rulings to support the alleged cases of violations against children attributed to the valiant Burkinabe fighters.”
Flore-Smereczniak, a Mauritian national, was appointed to the post in July 2024. She becomes the second UN official expelled by Burkina Faso’s junta, after Italian diplomat Barbara Manzi was expelled in December 2022.
Burkina Faso has been grappling with a jihadist insurgency for over a decade, which has claimed more than 26,000 lives — half of them in the past three years. Despite promises to restore security since taking power in a September 2022 coup, the junta has struggled to contain the worsening violence, while facing frequent accusations of abuses against civilians by its forces and allied militias.
