In Burkina Faso, Captain Traoré’s junta attacks the families of its opponents

“We never thought the regime could go this far.” On the other end of the line, with a trembling voice, spoke a close friend of General Djibril Bassolé, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Burkina Faso. “horrified” for the successive kidnappings of his two sons and his aide-de-camp between Wednesday 11 September and Monday 16 September in Ouagadougou.

Yasmine Bassolé, the daughter of the former foreign minister of former President Blaise Compaoré (ousted from power by a popular uprising in October 2014), was kidnapped by unidentified men on Monday evening and then left a clinic in the capital. She had been hospitalised there for two days after being inconvenienced by a violent search of her home during the night of Friday to Saturday by men who called themselves gendarmes.

In an audio recording seen by The world of Africa, The young woman recounted how one of her brothers, Gani Bassolé, arrested by men from Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s junta, in power since his coup d’état in September 2022, had been forced to take them to his home to carry out a search, without a court order and refusing to reveal his identity.

“I was paralyzed, panicked. One of them hit me twice very violently on the head.”he said from his hospital bed, also alerting of the presence of“elements on guard” behind the door of his bedroom“The entire hospital was raided. Meanwhile, my brother Aziz was also kidnapped. We don’t know where he was taken.”became alarmed just before his own kidnapping. A few days earlier, on September 11, Djibril Bassolé’s aide-de-camp, Omar Zalla, They had also been abducted under dark conditions.

“It’s to get to me”

General Bassolé, sentenced in 2019 to ten years in prison for his role in a failed coup in 2015, was evacuated to France in 2020 for health reasons. Captain Traoré’s junta now accuses him of being one of the main instigators of destabilization attempts against it.

From France, where he lives in exile, he spoke on Monday morning to Radio France Internationale (RFI) about the “terrible times” who has lived with his wife since the kidnapping of his son Aziz and just a few hours before that of his daughter Yasmine. “My children do not participate in political affairs. If they are being persecuted today, it is because of me, to get at me. […] Knowing that our children were put in mortal danger in this way, simply because I wanted to express myself on the security situation in my country, these are methods that we denounce in the strongest possible terms. »

At the end of June, Djibril Bassolé reported in an interview with Financial Africa HE “tensions and unrest within the armies, whose cohesion and morale are being tested by the horrors of the chaotic security situation”Captain Traoré’s grip had once again been shaken. On 12 June, a rocket exploded near the presidency in the centre of Ouagadougou, following one of the deadliest jihadist attacks in the country’s history, during which a hundred soldiers were killed in Mansila (north-east).

“When men are slaughtered as cannon fodder due to lack of precautions and general indifference, this inevitably generates frustration.” had denounced the general, criticizing the “Disastrous methods stubbornly used by the regime.”

Since Ibrahim Traoré, whose regime is under the control of Russian paramilitaries, came to power, kidnappings, arbitrary arrests and forced recruitment of dissident voices into the army have become legion. Many political opponents, human rights defenders and other civil society actors considered anti-system have fled the country in recent months. In a further step in its dictatorial drift, the regime is now attacking their loved ones who remain in the country.

“The soldiers are afraid”

“We have become worse than North Korea. We are all afraid that our loved ones will be arrested. They will do everything to silence us.” denounces a Burkinabe human rights actor exiled in a West African country. “crucial moment” The attack was also denounced by the Serve and Not Serve (SENS) movement, whose founder, lawyer Guy Hervé Kam, one of the figures of the popular uprising of 2014, was kidnapped in January and has been languishing in a prison in Ouagadougou since August, accused of trying to destabilise the state. “He has not had access to his lawyer for two weeks”regrets Yoporeka Somet, national secretary of SENS.

In a press release published on September 14, the movement reported the “kidnappings and/or disappearances” activist Mohamed Autre and Ada Diallo, wife of Ahmed Aziz Diallo, mayor of Dori (north). The latter, however, was released on Tuesday, according to several corroborating sources. At the end of April, in a post published on his Facebook page, her husband, also vice-president of the Party for Democracy and Socialism (PDS), called on the regime to release “all the kidnapped citizens”citing in particular the name of Guy Hervé Kam.

From an African country where he is exiled, Yoporeka Somet denounces “The very dangerous drift of the regime.” “Attacking the families of activists is unprecedented in the history of our country. This shows tension on the part of the authorities. Since the Barsalogho massacre, the military in power are afraid and know that their end could be near.” On August 24, in this commune in the Centre-North, nearly 400 Burkinabe were shot dead by jihadists while digging trenches on the orders of the junta.

Since then, tension has further increased within the army, while on social media, supporters of Captain Traoré “Threats have increased, calling for attacks against people close to the voices of protest, with total impunity,” Yoporeka Somet denounces. At the dawn of the kidnapping of General Bassolé’s relatives, Facebook pages supporting the junta, which have been threatening for months with critical voices, actually announced the purge in progress.

“All the complicit families have been identified. Close the borders, they will have no escape”one of them highlighted on September 14. “Whatever comes, they will remain silent forever” said another two days later, before stating that “operations continue”When contacted, the Burkina Faso government did not respond to our requests.