(Ouagadougou) The military regime in power in Burkina Faso announced on Saturday evening that it had suspended “all broadcast media” from the French media The worldafter the publication the day before of an article about a bloody jihadist attack in the north of the country.
“The government has decided with full responsibility to suspend all distribution media of the newspaper The world in Burkina Faso from this Saturday, December 2, 2023,” wrote government spokesperson and Minister of Communication, Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo in a press release.
The latter evokes a “tendentious article”, in reference to a publication on the website of the WorldFriday, about the bloody jihadist attack which struck a military base in Djibo (north) on Sunday, entitled “In Burkina Faso, the propaganda war rages after the jihadist attack on Djibo”.
According to the UN, 40 civilians died in this attack claimed by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) while Burkinabe security sources had mentioned “a few” soldiers killed.
The Burkina Faso Information Agency (AIB, official) assured that “more than 400 terrorists” were killed during the counter-offensive.
“Contrary to what the newspaper peremptorily asserts The world“, the Burkinabè government has never locked itself into a logic of propaganda in the war that we are waging against terrorism”, assures Mr. Ouedraogo, affirming that The world “chose his side”.
Several French media have been suspended this year, in this country led since October 2022 by Captain Ibrahim Traoré who came to power through a coup d’état.
At the end of September, the monthly Young Africa had been suspended after an article described as “untruthful” on tensions within the army.
The television channels LCI and France 24 as well as the radio RFI are also suspended while the correspondents of the daily newspapers Release And The world were expelled from Ouagadougou in April.
Since 2015, Burkina has been caught in a spiral of violence perpetrated by jihadist groups, which were already hitting neighboring Mali and Niger.
They have caused more than 17,000 civilian and military deaths over the past eight years, including more than 6,000 since the start of 2023, according to the NGO Acled which lists the victims of conflicts around the world.