Kalifara Séré, a freelance commentator for BF1, went missing after leaving the offices of Burkina Faso’s national High Council for Communication (CSC) media regulator on the evening of June 18, 2024, according to a person familiar with the case and a family member of Séré, both of whom spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing security concerns.
Those sources told CPJ that Séré went to the CSC after the regulator suspended the BF1 program “7 Infos” for two weeks for rebroadcasting Séré’s June 16, 2024, on-air comments questioning the authenticity of images of Traoré aired by the national broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB), according to the regulator’s decision a few days later, and a statement by BF1.
The same day he went missing, police questioned Séré at the regional police station in the Wemtenga area of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, about a defamation complaint by Désiré Nezien, director of the National Blood Transfusion Centre (CNTS), in connection to the June 16 comments.
Two other Burkinabe journalists — Adama Bayala and Serge Atiana Oulon — separately disappeared under similarly suspicious circumstances that June.
Contacted at the time about the disappearances, Gildas Ouédraogo, spokesperson for the CSC, told CPJ by messaging app that he was working to get authorization to answer questions. CPJ’s calls and messages to then-government spokesperson Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo following the disappearances did not receive a reply. CPJ’s calls to the publicly listed number of the CNTS, the national police, and the gendarmerie were unanswered.
In late July 2024, CPJ wrote to Ibrahim Traoré, the president of Burkina Faso’s military government, which seized power during a 2022 coup, expressing concern over the journalists’ disappearance and requesting assistance in investigating and making public the details of their whereabouts, as well as ensuring their well-being. The letter received no reply.
In October 2024, speaking at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the Gambian capital Banjul, Marcel Zongo, director-general for human rights at Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Justice, confirmed that Séré, Bayala, and Oulon had been conscripted. Earlier that month, Traoré had said in a speech that an unnamed journalist had been “recently conscripted” into the army because of his reporting.
In April 2023, Burkina Faso passed an emergency general mobilization law.
CPJ’s calls and text messages in October 2024 to request comment from the Burkinabe government spokesperson Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo and the Ministry of Justice went unanswered.
CPJ’s calls in April 2025 to Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo, who had by then become prime minister, government spokesperson Pingdwendé Gilbert Ouédraogo, and the Ministry of Defense were not answered.
Séré was released on July 11, 2025. Bayala was released on September 16, 2025.