Burkina Faso’s authorities should urgently account for the journalist Atiana Serge Oulon, who was forcibly disappeared by state security forces two years ago, and release him immediately, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Observatoire Kisal, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership between the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), and Reporters Without Borders said today.
On 24 June 2024, armed men claiming to be intelligence agents abducted Oulon, 40, director of the newspaper L’Événement (The Event), from his home in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital. In July 2024, Burkina Faso’s president, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, acknowledged that a journalist had been arrested for allegedly spreading falsehoods, an apparent reference to Oulon. The government later confirmed that Oulon and other journalists had been conscripted into the armed forces. However, in May 2026, an exclusive investigation from Reporters Without Borders said that security forces, including high-ranking officials close to President Traoré, secretly detained and tortured Oulon in private houses converted into unofficial prisons in Ouagadougou.
