Burkina Faso Expels Senior UN Official Following Critical Report

Page X Officielle de Carol Flore-Smereczniak

Burkina Faso's government declared UN coordinator Carol Flore-Smereczniak "persona non grata" for her contribution to the child rights report released in March 2025.

20 August 2025

Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC)

By Ilaria Allegrozzi

Secretary-General's Report Documents Increasing Abuses Against Children

Earlier this week, Burkina Faso's junta expelled the top United Nations representative in the country, Carol Flore-Smereczniak, declaring her "persona non grata" following a new UN report on violations against children in the country.

Flore-Smereczniak is the second senior UN official to be expelled by the junta, after Barbara Manzi was declared persona non grata in 2022, highlighting the junta's growing intolerance for independent scrutiny.

The junta's spokesperson accused Flore-Smereczniak of helping draft the April report, which documents the impact of Burkina Faso's armed conflict on children. The junta dismissed the findings, which implicated Burkinabè authorities, pro-junta militias, and anti-government Islamist armed groups.

The report found 2,483 grave violations against 2,255 children, including killings, kidnappings, and the recruitment or use of children by armed groups and security forces between July 2002 and June 2024. Islamist armed groups committed 65 percent of the abuses, and the rest were by Burkinabè security forces and the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (Volontaires for the Défense de la Patrie, VDPs), civilian auxiliaries assisting the armed forces.

The report also found a concerning increase in attacks on schools and noted that "the detention of children due to their alleged association with armed groups" was of great concern. Human Rights Watch has extensively documented abuses by all parties to the conflict against boys and girls since 2016, including attacks against students, teachers, and schools.

The junta has repeatedly criticized the UN in recent months. In March, the foreign minister condemned the UN's "inappropriate" use of expressions such as "non-state armed groups to define the terrorists who bring grief to our brave people," and its referring to VDPs as "militias." In July, the foreign minister called on the UN to "refocus" their interventions in Burkina Faso to bring them in line with the "vision" of the country's leader.

Since taking power in a 2022 coup, military authorities have systematically cracked down on the media, the political opposition, and dissent. Instead of trying to conceal abuses, the junta should engage with the UN to develop a plan to end them.

Ilaria Allegrozzi, Senior Sahel Researcher

Read the original article on HRW.