Burkina Faso: Conflict and Military Rule (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Revised Sept. 28, 2023 |
| Report Number |
IF10434 |
| Report Type |
In Focus |
| Authors |
Alexis Arieff |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Summary:
Burkina Faso experienced two military coups in 2022, part
of a wave of military seizures of power in Africa.
Successive governments have been unable to contain the
spread of violence by insurgents affiliated with Al Qaeda
and the Islamic State (IS). Abuses by state security forces
and militias appear to have fueled insurgent recruitment.
Conflicts have caused a spiraling humanitarian emergency
in the already impoverished country.
Following a pattern set by neighboring Mali, Burkina
Faso’s junta has ended military cooperation with former
colonial power France and pursued closer ties with
Moscow. Russia’s Wagner Group has been active in Mali
since 2021. Since the death of Wagner’s founder in August
2023, Russia’s government has signaled an intent to
exercise more direct control over the group’s operations,
and top Russian officials have engaged in outreach to
Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso and Mali have vowed to defend
the junta in neighboring Niger—where soldiers ousted the
elected president in July 2023—from regional sanctions and
from a threatened regional military intervention.
Developments in Burkina Faso, once viewed as a nascent
democracy and U.S. regional security partner, are part of a
chain of setbacks for U.S. policymakers in the region.
Militaries have seized power in seven African countries
since 2020. Security and humanitarian crises in the Sahel
appear likely to deteriorate further, given tensions in Niger,
France’s military drawdown, the withdrawal of the U.N.
peacekeeping operation in Mali, resurgent hostilities
between Mali’s military and northern separatist rebels, and
the Wagner Group’s regional activities (however these are
restructured).
