Burkina Faso’s military government has arrested eight individuals working for a European humanitarian organization, accusing them of “spying and treason.” The Dutch-based International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO), the employer of the detained staff, has “categorically” rejected the allegations and called for their immediate release.
Security Minister Mahamadou Sana confirmed the arrests, identifying the detainees as staff of INSO, an organization specializing in humanitarian safety. The arrested group includes eight people of mixed nationalities; A French man, A French-Senegalese woman, a Czech man, a Malian, Four Burkinabe nationals.
The Minister alleged that the staff continued to conduct covert activities, such as “information collection and meetings in person or online,” even after INSO was banned for three months in late July for allegedly “collecting sensitive data without authorisation.”
Sana further claimed that the INSO staff members had “collected and passed on sensitive security information that could be detrimental to national security and the interests of Burkina Faso, to foreign powers.”
NGO Rejects Allegations
INSO, which is based in The Hague, issued a strong denial of the military government’s claims. In a statement released Tuesday, the organization confirmed it “categorically” rejected the accusations about its activities in Burkina Faso.
The NGO insisted that its function is to collect information “exclusively for the purpose of keeping humanitarians safe,” and stressed that the data it gathers “is not confidential and is largely already known to the public.”
The arrests come amid heightened tensions between Burkina Faso’s military regime, which took power in a September 2022 coup, and Western nations, particularly its former colonial ruler, France. Burkina Faso, alongside neighboring military-ruled Mali and Niger, has moved to forge closer ties with Russia while winding back defense cooperation with Western powers.
