The government further accused the UN of making baseless assertions and spreading falsehoods in the document, which it said lacked supporting investigations or court rulings.
Burkina Faso has declared United Nations regional coordinator, Carol Flore-Smereczniak, persona non grata following a U.N. report alleging violations against children in the West African country, a government spokesperson announced on Monday.
According to Reuters, authorities in Ouagadougou said they were neither involved in the preparation of the report, titled “Children and Armed Conflict in Burkina Faso”, nor informed of its conclusions before publication.
The government further accused the UN of making baseless assertions and spreading falsehoods in the document, which it said lacked supporting investigations or court rulings.
There was no immediate response to requests for comment from UN officials in Geneva and New York.
The declaration comes amid worsening violence in Burkina Faso, where a decade-long conflict with Islamist militants linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State has destabilised the country and its neighbours. The region has also witnessed a series of military coups between 2020 and 2023.
The United Nations has repeatedly expressed concerns over the humanitarian and security situation in Burkina Faso. It has condemned what it described as killings, abuses, abductions of children, and the recruitment of child soldiers in the Sahel conflict.
In May 2024, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, voiced concern about rising civilian deaths.
A statement published on the United Nations website at the time read, “Between November 2023 and April 2024, the UN Human Rights Office received allegations of violations and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law affecting at least 2,732 individuals, a 71 per cent increase from the previous six months. Some 1,794 of the victims, or 65 per cent, were victims of unlawful killing.”
“Armed groups, such as Jamāʿat nuṣrat al-islām wal-muslimīn, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and other similar groups, have intensified their attacks against civilians, including against internally displaced people,” the statement added.
More recently, in March 2025, the UN Committee raised concerns about alleged abuses during security operations. According to a statement seen by SaharaReporters:
“United Nations Committee highlighted its concern over reports of serious human rights violations committed during security operations against civilians and suspects of terrorism acts, including extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests, and secret detentions,” it said.
“It also flagged its concern over the use of emergency measures and decrees to suppress civic space and silence journalists, lawyers, magistrates, and human rights defenders critical of the authorities.”
The tensions add to an already volatile political climate in Burkina Faso, where a forceful military takeover occurred in 2022.