Burkina Faso

South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique, Burkina Faso removed from Financial Action Task Force’s financial crimes list.

A global money-laundering watchdog has taken South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique and Burkina Faso off its “grey list” of countries subjected to increased monitoring.

The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF), a financial crimes watchdog based in France, on Friday said it was removing the four countries after “successful on-site visits” that showed “positive progress” in addressing shortcomings within agreed timeframes.

The FATF maintains “grey” and “black” lists for countries it has identified as not meeting its standards. It considers grey list countries to be those with “strategic deficiencies” in their anti-money laundering regimes, but which are nonetheless working with the organisation to address them.

FATF President Elisa de Anda Madrazo called the removal of the four “a positive story for the continent of Africa”.

South Africa revamped its tools to detect money laundering and terrorist financing, she said, while Nigeria created better coordination between agencies, Mozambique increased its financial intelligence sharing, and Burkina Faso improved its oversight of financial institutions.

Nigeria and South Africa were added to the list in 2023, preceded by Mozambique in 2022 and Burkina Faso in 2021.

Officials from the four countries – which will no longer be subject to increased monitoring by the organisation – welcomed the decision.

Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said the delisting marked a “major milestone in Nigeria’s journey towards economic reform, institutional integrity and global credibility”, while the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit separately said it had “worked resolutely through a 19-point action plan” to demonstrate its commitment to improvements.

Edward Kieswetter, commissioner of the South African Revenue Service, also cheered the update but said, “Removing the designation of grey listing is not a finish line but a milestone on a long-term journey toward building a robust and resilient financial ecosystem.”

Leaders in Mozambique and Burkina Faso did not immediately comment, though Mozambican officials had signalled for several months that they were optimistic about being removed.

In July, Finance Minister Carla Louveira said Mozambique was “not simply working to get off the grey list, but working so that in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, when the FATF makes its assessment in 2030, it will find a completely different situation from the one detected in 2021,” MZ News reported at the time.

More than 200 countries around the world have pledged to follow the standards of the FATF, which reviews their efforts to combat money laundering, as well as terrorist and weapons financing.

The FATF’s black or “high-risk” list consists of Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.

Dutch humanitarian organisation INSO rejected the allegations and called for the release of its eight staff members.

Burkina Faso’s military government says it has arrested eight people working for a humanitarian organisation, accusing them of “spying and treason”, allegations the Dutch nonprofit “categorically” rejected.

Burkina Faso’s Security Minister Mahamadou Sana said the eight people arrested worked for the International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO), a Netherlands-based group specialising in humanitarian safety.

Those detained included a French man, a French-Senegalese woman, a Czech man, a Malian and four Burkinabe nationals, Sana said, alleging the staff members had continued working for the organisation after it was banned for three months, for allegedly “collecting sensitive data without authorisation”.

The security minister claimed some of INSO’s staff had “continued to clandestinely or covertly conduct activities such as information collection and meetings in person or online” following the ban, including its country director, who had also previously been arrested when the suspension came into effect at the end of July.

Sana said 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”.

The Hague-based humanitarian organisation issued a statement on Tuesday saying it “categorically” rejected the allegations about its activities in Burkina Faso.

“[We] remain committed to doing everything in our power to secure the safe release of all our colleagues,” INSO said in the statement.

INSO also said it collects information “exclusively for the purpose of keeping humanitarians safe,” and that the information it gathers “is not confidential and is largely already known to the public.”

Burkina Faso’s military government has turned away from the West and, in particular, its former colonial ruler, France, since seizing power in a September 2022 coup.

Together with neighbouring Mali and Niger, which are also ruled by military governments, it has also withdrawn from regional and international organisations in recent months, with the three countries forming their own bloc known as the Alliance of Sahel States.

The three West African countries have also wound back defence cooperation with Western powers, most notably their former colonial ruler, France, in favour of closer ties with Russia, including Niger nationalising a uranium mine operated by French nuclear firm Orano.

Within the three countries, the military governments are fighting armed groups linked to al-Qaeda that control territory and have staged attacks on army posts.

Human Rights Watch and other advocacy groups have accused the fighters, the military and partner forces of Burkina Faso and Mali of possible atrocities.

“So what?” Richard Martin, a US-based pan-Africanist, shot back on LinkedIn, dismissing another user who dared to call a trending speech of Burkina Faso’s military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, by its real name: a deepfake.

It was the kind of fiery anti-imperialist speech delivered by Muammar Gaddafi at the United Nations in 2009. 

“You ask, ‘Why is Africa poor?’ That’s the wrong question,” Traoré tells the big news companies in crisp, accented English. “The real question is, how is Africa kept poor when it’s so rich?”

Patti Boulaye, a British-Nigerian singer and actress, shared it on LinkedIn, lending it an aura of authenticity. Many of the over 300 comments under her post on the social media platform echoed her conviction that the speech was real. Another sizable fraction recognised it as fake but embraced it anyway. Among those who raised concerns was London-based IT training consultant Andrian Moore, who was quickly pushed back by Richard: So what?

Undeterred by criticism, Patti, who, according to her LinkedIn bio, leads a fundraising effort to build healthcare clinics and a school in some African countries, posted yet another AI-generated speech.

“All I ask is that you do not throw away the baby with the bath water,” she wrote.

The new video shows the same man in his signature brownish camouflage, speaking on a global podium. Like the first, which was reposted over 250 times and received reactions from more than 1,300 users, the second video also went viral.

Captain Traoré seized power in Burkina Faso on September 30, 2022, citing military leader Paul-Henri Damiba’s failure to curb an escalating Islamic insurgency, and pledged to restore democracy within two years. But as the deadline approached, he extended his rule by five more years, cementing his place as president of the Francophone nation.

In office, Traoré has overseen notable agricultural and industrial initiatives, while also drawing international criticism. In May, Burkina Faso’s military was accused of killing at least 130 civilians in Solenzo, a town in the country’s west.

His rule has been marked by bold geopolitical shifts: withdrawing from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), forging a new alliance with other military-led neighbours, severing ties with France, and deepening relations with Russia.

A dictator loved by some and criticised by others across borders, Traoré’s complex personality made him a tool of choice in the deepfake videos now making the rounds in Africa.

Many of them hit the internet in May, attributed to Traoré and conveying similar messages – Africa, a historical victim of Western exploitation, must deliver itself. 

The videos appear to premiere on YouTube before spreading to social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The responses, from thousands of people, are often the same: tears, admiration, accolades, as well as scepticism. 

“This is not a simple speech, it’s rather a textbook of freedom for Africa,” one YouTube comment reads.

The numerous fact-checks that followed, proving the videos are synthetic, could not stop the people from believing them.

One, “President Ibrahim Traoré’s Bold Speech to the IMF Shocks the West,” has got close to 1.5 million YouTube views, while “Africa Will Not Kneel: Traoré’s UN Speech Shocks the West and Defies Neocolonial Power” has over 600,000. Now deleted by YouTube, “Pope Leo XIV Responds to Captain Ibrahim Traoré| A Message of Truth, Justice & Reconciliation” was streamed nearly a million times. Its description as “a work of fiction inspired by the life of IBRAHIM TRAORÉ” had little effect on the thousands who flooded the comment section.

“They sound like what leaders should say but seldom dare to,” Ghanaian strategic communicator Rifkin Dodo said of the moving speeches.

Yaw Kissi, a pan-African writer popular on LinkedIn, shares the same view: “When people hear voices, even artificial ones, boldly articulating what they’ve always felt but rarely heard echoed, it sparks something powerful.”

Where are they from?

Because of their anti-West rhetoric and pan-African posture, the biggest bet would be that these speeches originated in Africa itself. Yet an in-depth analysis of seven of them, collected from different YouTube channels, tells a different story.

The earliest uploads can be traced to three channels: Pan-African Dreams, Black Rebellion, and Univers Inspirant. The latter two were both created in March this year. Though Pan-African Dreams, which premiered the viral deepfake of the newly-inaugurated head of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV, responding to Traoré, has since been deleted by YouTube, archived records show it shared the same “Welcome to …” opening line in its page description as the other two.

Labelled D1 through D7, metadata extracted from the three channels was subjected to forensic linguistic analysis, using advanced AI language models.

An analysis of authorship and voice, lexical patterns, and stylistic markers revealed overlaps suggesting the channels are from one source:

Black Rebellion and Univers Inspirant both joined YouTube…in March 2025, within 9 days of each other.

Pan-African Dreams shares the same “Welcome to …” channel intro formula despite deletion.

All seven videos were released within 10 days (May 15–24, 2025) — a compressed schedule suggesting a campaign roll-out rather than organic posting.

While Black Rebellion chose a different core style, Pan-African Dreams and Univers Inspirant share the same linguistic fingerprint in their video descriptions. In one instance, Black Rebellion merged the styles of the other two channels.

This pattern implies one production team testing multiple rhetorical frames (religious/spiritual, militant/anti-colonial, media-critique) to maximise resonance across audiences.

YouTube transcripts of two videos from Black Rebellion and Univers Inspirant were also subjected to a similar analysis:

The core linguistic fingerprint—the ideology, the confrontational pronoun strategy, the complete lack of filler words, the passionate tone, and the reliance on specific rhetorical patterns—is remarkably consistent across both texts.

The significant differences in structure, pacing, and lexical focus are best explained not by a change in author but by a deliberate and skilful adaptation to audience and medium.

The underlying idiolect is the same; only the presentational style has been modified to fit the specific context.

Surprisingly, Black Rebellion and Univers Inspirant are both located in France, prompting an AI model to conclude:

The timing, registration, style overlaps, disclaimers, and cross-channel duplication all strongly suggest that Pan-African Dreams, Black Rebellion, and Univers Inspirant are not independent outlets but rather part of a single coordinated network, seeded from France in March 2025, with the May videos representing a first major campaign wave.

Truths, lies, and half-truths 

Richard repeated the same statement many times under Patti’s post: It’s absolutely true. Like him, many embrace the AI speeches, convinced they contain undiluted truths about Africa. 

But a fact-check revealed a mix of accurate data, exaggerations, and popular opinions.

Take Captain Traoré’s age. Official records show he was born in 1988, making him 37 in 2025. Yet in one of the videos, he declares: “I am 34 years old.”

Misleading claims of 46 US military bases in Africa, and the unverifiable annual transfer of $500 billion to France by the African CFA franc bloc, among others, further erode the speeches’ credibility. 

But one cannot deny the compelling manner in which facts are presented, shining light on historical exploitation and suppression of pan-African voices. 

It’s true, for instance, that Africa is a “net creditor of the world,” receiving $134 billion in aid and losing $192 billion annually through illicit channels. It’s also true that citizens derive little benefit from resources taken from African soils.

“Africa has 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt,” one deepfake Traoré declares. The mineral powers cell phones, computers, and electric cars, but many Congolese, from whose soil it is mined, cannot afford these products.

A significant share of the world’s diamonds and gold comes from Africa. But several miners in those regions remain extremely poor.

“Africa does not owe you,” Traoré tells the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in another deepfake. “You owe Africa. You owe us for the gold taken under colonial boots. You owe us for the minerals that power your smartphones while our villages remain in darkness.”

Declassified documents and government inquiries have linked Belgium to the removal of Congo’s anti-imperialism leader Patrice Lumumba in 1960, which culminated in his murder. Thomas Sankara’s 1987 overthrow and assassination have also raised questions about France’s role.

“Lumumba spoke the truth and paid the price,” said Rifnikin. “Sankara challenged the system, and bullets followed. Leaders today remember these as if it was yesterday.

“AI speaks openly because it has nothing to lose and cannot be arrested, poisoned or assassinated. African leaders remain silent because they have everything to lose: power, comfort, and sometimes even their lives.”

Yet, as Yaw warns, the same technology that gives voice to suppressed truths also carries the risk of distortion when cloaked in the aura of charismatic leaders.

“Communities must be equipped to critically engage with these narratives, separating emotional resonance from factual accuracy, while leveraging the technology to reclaim our own stories,” he said.

To what end?

“What are the objectives of those who posted the video?” Adrian asked during our conversation. “Are we advancing this agenda by sharing it?” 

A closer look at the YouTube channels provided some answers. Mid-roll and interactive overlay ads, features tied to AdSense, Google’s monetisation programme, were embedded in the videos, suggesting that profit, not ideology, is at play.

While a ‘Join’ button and fan-funding features that could have confirmed channel monetisation are absent, further analysis indicates significant background, voice, and musical variations in videos that are substantially the same. This could be explained by the YouTube policy requiring that borrowed content be significantly altered to qualify for monetisation.

Black Rebellion (28,000+ subscribers and more than 2.5 million views) and Univers Inspirant (46,000+ subscribers and more than 6 million views) are likely generating revenue from disinformation targeting Africans. On Black Rebellion, only three of its 40 videos are not about Traoré, but they are still about Africa. Univers Inspirant hosts 112 videos; just six do not feature Traoré. Those six, produced in French, highlight the achievements of France’s past and present leaders, a divergence that hints at the channel’s possible origin.

While metadata alone does not conclusively prove that the channels were registered in France, as creators can obscure their real location, the French-language content, French name (Inspiring Universe in English), and page description in French reinforce the suspicion.

“Today, we have an inspiring message from Ibrahim Traoré,” said Adrian, who also told me his surprise at finding such a deepfake circulating on LinkedIn, shared by someone from whom one would ordinarily expect due diligence.

“Tomorrow, we could have Ibrahim Traoré promoting prejudice or justifying crimes, and it would be accepted, even acted upon, simply because it came in the voice of a visionary African leader.”

Africa has endured centuries of exploitation. Yet the ongoing weaponisation of her pain, packaged through deepfakes by individuals linked to a country that once colonised her, opens a new chapter in the history of human exploitation.

“Colonialism never ended,” says Traoré in one such deepfake. “It just changed its face.”

Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claims attack on Djibo military outpost, SITE Intelligence Group says.

An al-Qaeda affiliate has claimed it killed 200 soldiers in an attack on a Burkina Faso army base this week, according to an NGO that tracks armed groups’ online activity.

The base in the northern town of Djibo came under attack on Sunday morning, and a police station and market were also targeted, security sources told the news agency Reuters. Although there was no official toll, three Djibo residents told Reuters that dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed.

Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the death toll. A Burkina Faso military source told Al Jazeera that the armed group was exaggerating the number of casualties.

The United States-based SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activity of armed groups, said Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) made the claim in a formal statement.

“The operation comes amid increased JNIM activity in Burkina Faso over the past month inflicting a high number of casualties,” SITE said.

The organisation previously said Ousmane Dicko, head of JNIM in Burkina Faso, had appeared in a video urging residents of Djibo to leave the town for their own safety.

Reporting from Dakar, Senegal, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said the attack took place over a number of days.

“One of the major military outposts that was supposed to protect this town of about 200,000 people was razed to the ground, such was the firepower of the armed groups,” said Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from Senegal, Dakar.

“This is one of the deadliest attacks in Burkina Faso, and it comes just as Ibrahim Traore [Burkina Faso’s military leader] has been saying that the country has been gaining territory, encouraging people to go back to their homes, but this latest attack proves the opposite,” said Haque.

A video circulating on social media from the al-Qaeda affiliate warned people to leave their homes and said it would seize more territories.

“What we’re seeing here is the pivot point where these armed groups that normally attack villages are now trying to take over towns. It’s a major blow for Burkina Faso’s armed forces,” Haque said, noting the attacks come just as Traore was visiting Russia, asking President Vladimir Putin for more training and arms to fight off armed groups.

JNIM claimed responsibility for another assault this week targeting a military post in Burkina Faso’s northern Loroum province in which the group said 60 soldiers were killed, according to SITE.

The attacks highlight the difficulties the three Sahel nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, ruled by military leaders, are facing in containing the armed groups.

Burkina Faso authorities have not commented on the latest attacks.

A notable attack occurred in the Burkina town of Sole, where JNIM fighters raided the army military post and killed soldiers, SITE Intelligence said, without specifying on which day it took place.

A Military government took power in Burkina Faso in 2022, but they have largely failed to provide stability, as more than 60 percent of the country is estimated to be outside government control.

Army aircraft were reportedly hovering above as the killings took place, showing command control of the operation.

At least 130 civilians belonging to the Fulani ethnic group were killed by Burkina Faso’s army and allied militias near the western town of Solenzo in March, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

The killings took place amid a major weeks-long military campaign by special forces that resulted in “widespread civilian deaths and massive displacement” of the Fulani pastoralist community in the region, the rights group said in a report on Monday.

It added that an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group called the Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) then carried out a series of retaliatory attacks, hitting villages that the armed group perceived as having assisted the military.

Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at HRW, said in a statement the “the viral videos of the atrocities by pro-government militias near Solenzo” that cirinitially circulated “told only part of the story”.

“Further research uncovered that Burkina Faso’s military was responsible for these mass killings of Fulani civilians, which were followed by deadly reprisals by an Islamist armed group,” Allegrozzi added.

“The government needs to impartially investigate these deaths and prosecute all those responsible.”

‘Many women and children died’

HRW had reported in March that the government’s involvement was likely due to video evidence online.

At that time, the government strongly denied the allegations, saying in a statement it “condemned the propagation, on social media, of images inducing hate and community violence, and fake information aimed at undermining social cohesion” in the West African country.

Burkina Faso’s government and army did not immediately react to Monday’s report, which alleged that the Burkinabe army “led and participated in the massacre of more than 130, possibly many more, ethnic Fulani civilians by pro-government militias”.

The rights organisation’s report is based on interviews with witnesses to the attacks, militia members, journalists and civil society members.

Witnesses quoted by HRW said hundreds of government troops and drones, as well as a pro-government militia called the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP), were involved in attacks on Solenzo and other towns in the western Boucle du Mouhoun region.

The witnesses said most of the victims in Banwa province were women, children and older people.

Military helicopters and drones surveilled the area, “indicating direct command control of the operation”, HRW said.

A 44-year-old Fulani herder, who lost eight family members, told HRW that thousands of families from more than 20 villages were forced to flee to neighbouring Mali in search of protection.

“However, we couldn’t reach Mali without crossing villages [that were] occupied by the VDPs and the army. The VDPs shot at us like animals, while drones were flying over our heads. Many women and children died because they could not run,” he said.

Military rulers took power in Burkina Faso in 2022, but they have largely failed to provide the stability promised, as more than 60 percent of the country is estimated to be outside government control.

The military has also turned to mass recruitment of civilians who are deployed in poorly trained militia units, leading to worsening tensions between ethnic groups.