Burkina Faso (since 1984)
On 2 August 1984, on Sankara's initiative, the country's name changed from "Upper Volta" to "Burkina Faso", or land of the honest men; (the literal translation is land of the upright men). The presidential decree was confirmed by the National Assembly on 4 August 1984.
Sankara's government comprised the National Council for the Revolution (CNR – French: Conseil national révolutionnaire), with Sankara as its president, and established popular Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs). The Pioneers of the Revolution youth programme was also established.
Sankara launched an ambitious socioeconomic programme for change, one of the largest ever undertaken on the African continent. His foreign policies centred on anti-imperialism, with his government rejecting all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalising all land and mineral wealth and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. His domestic policies included a nationwide literacy campaign, land redistribution to peasants, railway and road construction and the outlawing of female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy.
Sankara pushed for agrarian self-sufficiency and promoted public health by vaccinating 2,500,000 children against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles. His national agenda also included planting more than 10,000,000 trees to halt the growing desertification of the Sahel. Sankara called on every village to build a medical dispensary and had more than 350 communities build schools with their own labour.
In the 1980s, when ecological awareness was still very low, Sankara was one of the few African leaders to consider environmental protection a priority. He engaged in three major battles: against bush fires "which will be considered as crimes and will be punished as such"; against cattle roaming "which infringes on the rights of peoples because unattended animals destroy nature"; and against the illegitimate cutting of firewood "whose profession will have to be organized and regulated". As part of a development program involving a large part of the population, ten million trees were planted in Burkina Faso in fifteen months during the revolution. To face the advancing desert and recurrent droughts, Sankara also proposed the planting of wooded strips about fifty kilometers wide, crossing the country from east to west. Cereal production, close to 1.1 billion tons before 1983, was predicted to rise to 1.6 billion tons in 1987. Jean Ziegler, former UN special rapporteur for the right to food, said that the country "had become food self-sufficient."
On 15 October 1987, Sankara and twelve other government officials were assassinated in a coup d'état organized by Blaise Compaoré, Sankara's former colleague, who took over as Burkina Faso's president. He held the position until October 2014. After the coup and although Sankara was known to be dead, some CDRs mounted an armed resistance to the army for several days. A majority of Burkinabè citizens hold that France's foreign ministry, the Quai d'Orsay, was behind Compaoré in organizing the coup. There is some evidence for France's support of the coup.
Compaoré gave the deterioration in relations with neighbouring countries as one of the reasons for the coup. He argued that Sankara had jeopardised foreign relations with the former colonial power (France) and with neighbouring Ivory Coast. Following the coup, Compaoré immediately reversed the nationalizations, overturned nearly all of Sankara's policies, returned the country back into the IMF fold, and ultimately spurned most of Sankara's legacy. Following an alleged coup-attempt in 1989, Compaoré introduced limited democratic reforms in 1990. Under the new (1991) constitution, Compaoré was re-elected without opposition in December 1991. In 1998 Compaoré won election in a landslide. In 2004, 13 people were tried for plotting a coup against President Compaoré and the coup's alleged mastermind was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 2000, the constitution was amended to reduce the presidential term to five years and set term limits to two, preventing successive re-election. The amendment took effect during the 2005 elections. If passed beforehand, it would have prevented Compaoré from being reelected. Other presidential candidates challenged the election results. But in October 2005, the constitutional council ruled that the amendment would not apply until the end of his second term in office. This cleared the way for his candidacy in the 2005 election. On 13 November 2005, he was reelected in a landslide.
In the 2010 presidential election, Compaoré was re-elected. Only 1.6 million Burkinabè voted, out of a total population 10 times that size. In February 2011, the death of a schoolboy provoked the 2011 Burkinabè protests, a series of popular protests, coupled with a military mutiny and a magistrates' strike, that called for Compaoré's resignation, democratic reforms, higher wages for troops and public servants and economic freedom. As a result, governors were replaced and wages for public servants were raised. In April 2011, there was an army mutiny; the president named new chiefs of staff, and a curfew was imposed in Ouagadougou.
Compaoré's government played the role of negotiator in several West-African disputes, including the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis, the Inter-Togolese Dialogue (2007), and the 2012 Malian Crisis. As of 2014, Burkina Faso remained one of the least-developed countries in the world.
Starting on 28 October 2014 protesters began to march and demonstrate in Ouagadougou against President Compaoré, who appeared ready to amend the constitution and extend his rule. On 30 October protesters set fire to the parliament building and took over the national TV headquarters. Ouagadougou International Airport closed and MPs suspended the vote on changing the constitution (the change would have allowed Compaoré to stand for re-election in 2015). Later in the day, the military dissolved all government institutions and imposed a curfew.
On 31 October 2014, Compaoré resigned. Lt. Col. Isaac Zida said that he would lead the country during its transitional period before the planned 2015 presidential election, but there were concerns over his close ties to the former president. In November 2014 opposition parties, civil-society groups and religious leaders adopted a plan for a transitional authority to guide Burkina Faso to elections. Under the plan Michel Kafando became the transitional president and Lt. Col. Zida became the acting Prime Minister and Defense Minister.
On 16 September 2015, the Regiment of Presidential Security (RSP) carried out a coup d'état, seizing the president and prime minister and then declaring the National Council for Democracy the new national government. However, on 22 September 2015, the coup leader, Gilbert Diendéré, apologized and promised to restore civilian government. On 23 September 2015 the prime minister and interim president were restored to power.
General elections took place on 29 November 2015. Roch Marc Christian Kaboré won the election in the first round with 53.5% of the vote, defeating businessman Zéphirin Diabré, who took 29.7%. Kaboré was sworn in as president on 29 December 2015. Kaboré was re-elected in the general election of 22 November 2020, but his party Mouvement du Peuple pour le Progrès (MPP), failed to reach absolute parliamentary majority. It secured 56 seats out of a total of 127. The Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), the party of former President Blaise Compaoré, was distant second with 20 seats.
A Jihadist insurgency began in August 2015, part of the Islamist insurgency in the Sahel. Between August 2015 and October 2016, seven different posts were attacked across the country. On 15 January 2016, terrorists attacked the capital city of Ouagadougou, killing 30 people. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al-Mourabitoune, which until then had mostly operated in neighbouring Mali, claimed responsibility for the attack.
In 2016, attacks increased after a new group Ansarul Islam, led by imam Ibrahim Malam Dicko, was founded. Its attacks focused particularly on Soum province and it killed dozens of people in the attack on Nassoumbou on 16 December.
Between 27 March and 10 April 2017, the governments of Mali, France, and Burkina Faso launched a joint operation named "Operation Panga", which involved 1,300 soldiers from the three countries, in the Fhero Forest, near the Burkina Faso-Mali border, considered a sanctuary for Ansarul Islam. The head of Ansarul Islam, Ibrahim Malam Dicko, was killed in June 2017 and Jafar Dicko became leader.
On 2 March 2018, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin attacked the French embassy in Ouagadougou as well as the general staff of the Burkinabè army. Eight soldiers and eight attackers were killed, and a further 61 soldiers and 24 civilians were injured. The insurgency expanded to the east of the country and, in early October, the Armed Forces of Burkina Faso launched a major military operation in the country's East, supported by French forces. Between mid-2018 to February 2019, at least 42 people were murdered by jihadists and a minimum of 116 mostly Fulani civilians were killed by military forces without trial. The attacks increased significantly in 2019. According to the ACLED, armed violence in Burkina Faso jumped by 174% in 2019, with nearly 1,300 civilians dead and 860,000 displaced. Jihadist groups also began to specifically target Christians.
On 8 July 2020, the United States raised concerns after a Human Rights Watch report revealed mass graves with at least 180 bodies, which were found in northern Burkina Faso where soldiers were fighting jihadists. On 4 June 2021, the Associated Press reported that according to the government of Burkina Faso, gunmen killed at least 100 people in Solhan village in northern Burkina Faso near the Niger border. A local market and several homes were also burned down. A government spokesman blamed jihadists. Heni Nsaibia, senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project said it was the deadliest attack recorded in Burkina Faso since the beginning of the jihadist insurgency.
From 4–5 June 2021, unknown militants massacred more than 170 people in the villages of Solhan and Tadaryat. Jihadists killed 80 people in Gorgadji on 20 August. On 14 November, the Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin attacked a gendarmerie in Inata, killing 53 soldiers, the heaviest loss of life by the Burkinabe military during the insurgency, and a major morale loss in the country. In December Islamists killed 41 people in an ambush, including the popular vigilante leader Ladji Yoro. Yoro was a central figure in the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) a pro-government militia that had taken a leading role in the struggle against Islamists.
In 2023, shortly after the murder of a Catholic priest by insurgents, the bishop of Dori, Laurent Dabiré, claimed in an interview with Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need that around 50% of the country was in the hands of Islamists.
In a successful coup on 24 January 2022, mutinying soldiers arrested and deposed President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré following gunfire. The Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR) supported by the military declared itself to be in power, led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. On 31 January, the military junta restored the constitution and appointed Damiba interim president. In the aftermath of the coup, ECOWAS and the African Union suspended Burkina Faso's membership.
On 10 February, the Constitutional Council declared Damiba president. He was sworn in as president on 16 February. On 1 March 2022, the junta approved a charter allowing a military-led transition of 3 years. The charter provides for the transition process to be followed by the holding of elections. President Kaboré, who had been detained since the military junta took power, was released on 6 April 2022.
The insurgency continued following the coup, with about 60% of the country under government control. The Siege of Djibo began in February 2022 and continued as of June 2023. Between 100 and 165 people were killed in Seytenga Department, Séno Province on 12–13 June and around 16,000 people fled their homes. In June 2022, the Government announced the creation of "military zones", which civilians were required to vacate so that the country's Armed and Security Forces could fight insurgents without any "hindrances".
On 30 September 2022, Damiba was ousted in a military coup led by Capt. Ibrahim Traoré. This came eight months after Damiba had seized power. The rationale given by Traoré for the coup d'état was the purported inability of Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba to deal with an Islamist insurgency. Damiba resigned and left the country. On 6 October 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré was officially appointed as president. Apollinaire Joachim Kyélem de Tambèla was appointed interim Prime Minister on 21 October 2022.
On 13 April 2023, authorities in Burkina Faso declared a mobilisation in order to give the nation all means necessary to combat terrorism and create a "legal framework for all the actions to be taken" against the insurgents in recapturing 40% of the national territory from Islamist insurgents. On 20 April, the Rapid Intervention Brigade committed the Karma massacre, rounding up and executing civilians en masse. Between 60 and 156 civilians were killed.
On 25 August 2024, JNIM again launched a major attack in the region of Barsalogho, killing at least 400 people.
In 2025, the armed forces foiled an attempted coup, which they said had been planned by plotters based in the Ivory Coast. Thousands rallied in Ouagadougou in support of the military government after the foiled coup plot. In May, reports of a digital cult around Traoré began to surface.
