Daily Times

Burkina Faso has expelled correspondents from France’s Le Monde and Liberation dailies, the newspapers said on Sunday, the latest move the junta running the west African country has taken against French media.

Burkina Faso, which witnessed two coups last year, is battling a militant insurgency that spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

“Our correspondent in Burkina Faso, Sophie Douce, has been expelled from the country… at the same time as her colleague from Liberation, Agnes Faivre,” Le Monde said on Sunday.

The women were summoned by authorities on Friday evening and given 24 hours to leave the country. They landed in Paris on Sunday morning, it said.

Le Monde said it “condemns in the strongest terms this arbitrary decision” and demanded the authorities rescind it.

Liberation said that it “vigorously protests these absolutely unjustified expulsions” and suggested they were linked to an investigation it published earlier in the week.

“The March 27 publication of a Liberation investigation into the circumstances in which a video was filmed showing children and adolescents being executed in a military barracks by at least one soldier evidently strongly displeased the junta in power in Burkina Faso.”

Burkina government spokesman Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo wrote after the piece was published that “the government strongly condemns these manipulations disguised as journalism to tarnish the image of the country”.