Burkina Faso blocks media, aid group over reports army massacred 223 people

Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of death and violence.

Burkina Faso's government has responded to allegations its army massacred hundreds of people by censoring the aid group and media outlets that reported it.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a reporton Thursday accusing the West African country's military of slaughtering 223 civilians, including 56 children, in two villages suspected of co-operating with militants.

In response, the military government has blocked access to the aid group's website, and temporarily suspended the BBC and Voice of America radio stations for covering the report, which it called "hasty and biased."

"Blocking free speech or blocking access to our website does not really address the issue at hand," Carine Kaneza Nantulya, HRW's deputy director for Africa, told As It Happens host Nil Kksal.

"It's part of a broader trendin the playbook of any autocratic government to silence dissent."

HRW is calling on Burkina Faso to conduct "clear, transparent, swift investigations" into the killings alongside the United Nations and the African Union.

Aid group interviews witnesses, survivors

HRWsays it was alerted to the killings when a regional prosecutorannounced on March 1 that it was investigating the reported deaths of 170 people in attacks on the villages of Nondin and Soro inYatengaprovince.

In its owninvestigation, HRW found the death toll to be much higher.

The aid group says it interviewed dozens of witnesses, survivors and civil organizations, and analyzed videos and photos that villagers captured of the massacre.

The survivors in the villages told the aid group that on Feb. 25, more than 100 soldiers went door to door,orderedpeople out of their homes and opened fire, killing 44 people, including 20 children, in Nondin,and 179 people, including 36 children, in nearby Soro.

The soldiers then forced those left behind to bury the bodies in mass graves, the report says.

The government did not respond to requests for comment. But in a statement reported by Al Jazeera, it condemned HRW for "hasty and biased declarations without tangible proof against the Burkinabearmy."

Nantulya says one man whospoke to HRWlost his entire family.

"One day it was a family of 13 people. Today he's alone," she said. "He's lost his brothers, siblings, his mother, his father everybody."

The stories from survivors, she says, are harrowing. She says one person said "they took the blood coming out of the person who was next to them, put it on them to pretend that they were dead, and had to emerge from a pile of dead bodies."

Retaliation for militant attacks

The villagers told HRW the massacres were believed to have been carried out in retaliation for a deadly attack by Islamist fighters on a military camp near the provincial capital Ouahigouya, about 25 kilometres away.

Burkino Faso, a once-peaceful nation, has been ravaged by violence between militants linked toal-Qaeda, ISISand state-backed forcessince 2012.

More than 20,000 people have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, aU.S.-based nonprofit. More than two million people have been displaced,according to government figures published last year.

Nantulya says the people of Burkina Faso have been subjected to a "protracted, long, atrocious" insurgencythat has "killed scores of civilians, soldiers and militia members."

She says February's massacre was "retaliatory,"but also "part of a generalized and systematic attack against civilians, which is why we have said that they may amount to crimes against humanity."

And it plays right into the hands of the very militants the state is fighting, she said.

"The grievances, the death that's being unleashed upon civilians, is not necessarily going to reduce the threat," she said.

"On the contrary and we've said this over and over again human rights abuses, mass atrocities, constitute one of the driving factorsin the recruitment by Islamist armed groups."

Government denies targeting civilians

It's not the first time the Burkina Fasogovernment has been accused of targeting civilians en masse.

In April, The Associated Press reported that it had verified accounts of a Nov. 5 army attack on another village that killed at least 70 people, including children and elderly people. Survivors said the army blamed the villagers for co-operating with militants.

The government has repeatedly denied that its soldiers target civilians.

Burkina Faso experienced two coups in 2022. Most recently, a junta led by Capt. Ibrahim Traoreseized control of the country's government in September 2022, vowing to beat back militants.

Frustrated with a lack of progress over years of Western military assistance, the junta has severed military ties with former colonial ruler France and turned to Russiainstead for security support.

Nantulya, meanwhile, says she's been thinking about the long-term impact on the people of Soro and Nondin.

"It's what stays after all this. It's the post-traumatic stress," she said. "Hearing how they have nightmares, that they cannot sleep, that they keep hearing the gunshots and the screaming. They keep seeing their loved ones."

Their stories wouldnever would have come to light were it not for the bravery of survivors who fled the village and reported what happened to provincial authorities,she said.

"Ultimately, the courage and the resilience of the Burkinabepeople, these survivors, is crucial really, and important to recognize," she said.

With files from Reuters and The AssociatedPress. Interview with Carine Kaneza Nantulya produced by Kevin Robertson