Burkina Faso journalist Atiana Serge Oulon has been forcibly disappeared for two years, rights groups say, after his paper revisited a corruption allegation.
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What happened
Atiana Serge Oulon, managing editor of the investigative newspaper L'Événement, was abducted from his Ouagadougou home on June 24, 2024 by armed men claiming to be intelligence agents. Days earlier, authorities had suspended the paper after it revisited a December 2022 report alleging that an army captain diverted 400 million CFA francs meant for civilian volunteer auxiliaries; the report notes the captain's rank and region matched President Ibrahim Traoré. In July 2024 Traoré acknowledged that a journalist had been arrested for allegedly spreading false information, and the government later said Oulon had been conscripted into the armed forces. A May 2026 RSF investigation reported that security forces, including senior officials close to Traoré, secretly held and tortured him in unofficial detention sites without access to lawyers or family. On June 22, 2026 Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, RSF and others jointly said authorities have not disclosed where he is and called for his release.
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Response
Contacted and made an on-record admission — exact wording not on record.
What happened next (0)
No outcome recorded yet.