Nairobi — Free INSO Staff; Enable Aid Delivery; End Crackdown on Civil Society
The military junta in Burkina Faso is wrongfully detaining eight aid workers who had been helping to address the humanitarian emergency in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately drop the baseless charges against them and release them.
In late July 2025, the Burkinabè intelligence services in Ouagadougou, the capital, detained the French national Jean-Christophe Pégon, director of the International NGO Safety Organization (INSO), a Netherlands-based group specializing in humanitarian safety. In August, security forces detained seven other INSO staff, including four Burkinabè citizens and three foreigners. However, the authorities did not publicly announce the arrests until October 7, and have yet to set a trial date.
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"The Burkina Faso government's detention of eight aid workers amid a humanitarian crisis sends a chilling message that aid groups operate at the whim of a junta that seems to have little concern for people in need," said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The authorities should immediately drop all charges against INSO workers, release them, and allow humanitarian groups to operate freely and safely."
The arbitrary detention of INSO workers fits into a wider pattern of government action against domestic and international nongovernmental organizations and occurs at a time when civic space in Burkina Faso has been shrinking.
Security Minister Mahamadou Sana said on October 7 that government security forces had arrested the INSO workers on spying and treason charges, accusing them of collecting and providing sensitive security information to foreign powers. INSO, in a news release that day, rejected the accusations and said that "[a]ssociating our work to strengthen humanitarian safety with intelligence work is not only false but will ... place aid workers at greater risk."
INSO works in 26 countries and since 2016 has offered advice on the security environment in Burkina Faso to allow nongovernmental organizations to safely provide humanitarian assistance to conflict-affected populations.
"Accurate information on the security context is crucial to mitigate the many risks humanitarians are facing in Burkina Faso, as well as to better plan aid operations for the people in need," an aid worker told Human Rights Watch.
Under international humanitarian law, warring parties are prohibited from harassing, intimidating, and arbitrarily detaining humanitarian relief personnel.
"By targeting INSO, the authorities are targeting the whole humanitarian community in Burkina Faso," said another aid worker. "Without an in-depth analysis of the security situation, our work becomes more dangerous or impossible."
Armed groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State control large swathes of Burkinabè territory and have attacked civilians as well as the military. Security forces have carried out counterinsurgency operations resulting in widespread abuses against civilians, including mass killings that may amount to crimes against humanity.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since 2016 and over 2 million have been displaced. The conflict has exacerbated an existing humanitarian crisis in a country that ranks among the world's poorest. According to the United Nations, 6.3 million people, including 3.4 million children, needed humanitarian assistance across Burkina Faso in 2024. An estimated 1.1 million of these people lived in towns and villages besieged by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, or commonly known as JNIM), the dominant Islamist armed group in the country.
In June, the junta withdrew the licenses of 11 international organizations, including the Tony Blair Institute, a think tank advising governments and businesses on strategy and policy, and Geneva Call, a non-profit group that focuses on protecting civilians in armed conflicts, for allegedly not complying with the regulations governing the operation of associations and nongovernmental groups, and suspended a local group for violating the national sports legislation.
That month, the junta also suspended for three months the activities of the international religious association Comunità di Sant'Egidio, accusing it of collecting "personal data on Burkinabè territory and hosting it abroad without prior authorization," and of the faith-based Swedish development organization Diakonia, citing the need "to preserve public order and safety." On July 31, the junta announced that INSO faced a three-month suspension for "the collection of sensitive data without prior authorization."
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The junta, since taking power in a 2022 coup, has cracked down on civil society groups, critical media organizations, and the political opposition. It has jailed, forcibly disappeared, and unlawfully conscripted activists, journalists, opposition party members, and judges and prosecutors.
In April 2024, the authorities suspended access to the Human Rights Watch website, following a report alleging that the army had killed over 220 civilians in two villages in the North region. Authorities also suspended BBC and Voice of America radio networks because of their reporting on the Human Rights Watch report.
In August 2025, the junta expelled the top UN representative in the country, Carol Flore-Smereczniak, declaring her "persona non grata" following a new UN report on rights violations against children in the country.
"The charges against the eight INSO workers misrepresent the group's crucial work allowing humanitarian organizations to operate safely," Allegrozzi said. "Targeting aid workers risks hindering the delivery of life-saving assistance to people desperately in need."
