attacks. Several public figures were victims of enforced disappearances and women and girls were victims of abduction. Armed groups severely restricted the economic and social rights of civilians in towns and villages under siege. BACKGROUND The armed conflict continued between army forces together with the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland (VDPs) – an auxiliary force – and Ansaroul Islam and other armed groups. One Burkinabe in 10 was displaced by the conflict. The government’s control over its territory was limited to 65%, according to the prime minister. The government extended the state of emergency to eight additional provinces and promulgated a decree allowing the authorities to conscript citizens for national defence purposes. Burkina Faso also contracted an alliance with Mali and Niger, the Alliance of Sahelian States, for defence purposes. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Authorities who came to power by a coup in September 2022 clamped down on anyone they considered to be critical of their governance. Conscription was used by the authorities to silence and harass independent voices. In March, Boukaré Ouedraogo, president of Appel de Kaya, a civil society organization, was forcibly enrolled for a month as a VDP by the military, notwithstanding his visual impairment, after he criticized the government for the lack of drinkable water in the city of Kaya and for their inadequate response to the security situation. In early November, Daouda Diallo, secretary general of the Coalition Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities, was conscripted by the government, along with 11 other civil society actors and media figures who publicly expressed their criticism of government policies. On 1 December, Daouda Diallo was abducted by security forces and a few days later a picture showing him armed and in military clothing circulated on social media. On 27 December, Ablassé The State of the World’s Human Rights Ouedraogo, a politician and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, was arrested at his home by individuals in civilian clothes and taken to an unknown destination. JOURNALISTS AND MEDIA On 31 March, two correspondents for the French newspapers Libération and Le Monde were summoned to the State Security agency, the authority in charge of domestic intelligence, and questioned for their reporting on the conflict. Both were subsequently expelled from Burkina Faso.1 In March, the French media agency France 24 was suspended after broadcasting the written responses of the leader of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb to questions submitted by a journalist. In May, two journalists from the Omega media group, Lookman Sawadogo and Alain Traoré, were detained and charged with “complicity in failing to report an offence” in the case concerning audio messages calling on citizens to burn down the palace of the Mogho Naaba, one of Burkina Faso’s major traditional chieftains. They were acquitted in July. In August, the Omega media group was suspended for one month after broadcasting an interview with a Nigerien political figure (a former member of the deposed president Bazoum’s cabinet and spokesperson for a political movement opposed to the new military authorities). UNLAWFUL ATTACKS AND KILLINGS ABUSES BY ARMED GROUPS According to reports from media and the NGO Burkinabe Movement for Human and People’s Rights / Mouvement Burkinabe des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples (MBDHP), at least 60 civilians were killed in February during an attack against the town of Partiaga (Tapoa province, Eastern region), allegedly by members of Ansaroul Islam. On 11 May, according to a communiqué of the governor of the Boucle de Mouhoun region, at least 33 civilians were killed by an armed group in the village of Youlou while they were tending their fields. 111