World News | Burkina Faso investigates alleged abuse by security forces

DAKAR, April 21 (AP) — The government of Burkina Faso is investigating allegations of human rights abuses by its security forces after a video surfaced that appeared to show the extrajudicial killing of seven children in the north of the country .

“If established, the conclusions of the above-mentioned investigation will lead to legal proceedings against those responsible for these actions,” government spokesman Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo said in a statement on Thursday.

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“Perpetrators of human rights violations in Burkina Faso will not go unpunished.”

The announcement came in response to a call by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate the video, which began circulating in chat groups in mid-February.

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The Associated Press published the findings of its own investigation into the video this month. An Associated Press investigation determined that Burkinabe security forces killed the children at a military base outside the town of Ouhiguaia.

Relatives of one of the boys, Adama, 16, said he was breastfeeding when security forces detained and later killed him.

Jihad fighters linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group have waged a violent seven-year insurgency in Burkina Faso. The violence has killed thousands, displaced some two million people and disrupted and divided the once peaceful country, leading to two coups last year.

Extrajudicial executions of civilians have increased and civil liberties have declined since Captain Ibrahim Traore took power in a second coup in September, according to rights groups and residents.

The government’s pledge to bring the perpetrators to justice marked a marked shift from its initial response to the killings in the video.

Authorities said Burkina Faso’s security forces were not involved in the investigation, which was published by The Associated Press and that jihadists often disguised themselves as soldiers and filmed killings to blame the government.

The government also cracked down on journalists days after French newspaper Libération published its own account of the killings.

Liberation journalist Agnes Faivre and French journalist Sophie Douce of French newspaper Le Monde were deported and given 24 hours to leave the country without explanation.

Rights groups said the government’s announcement was a step in the right direction, but only if the promised investigation yielded results and strengthened protections for human rights.

“The problem is that these types of communiqués rarely get action. There’s no guarantee this time will be an exception,” said Chrysogone Zougmore, president of the Human Rights Campaign in Burkina Faso.

“The very few sanctions that do occur are so insignificant that they do not act as a deterrent. In short, this umpteenth government communiqué does not guarantee respect for human rights and civil liberties in terms of importance,” he said . (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)