West Africa: Further Crackdowns by Military Juntas

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(Nairobi) – Leaders in several West African countries increased crackdowns on freedoms as they strengthened their hold on power in 2025, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026.

In Nigeria and the Sahel, Islamist armed groups and government forces and their allies repeatedly attacked civilians and civilian infrastructure at a time when the Sahel juntas have expelled regional and international bodies and weakened institutions that provide accountability for abuses.

“Leaders of military juntas in the Sahel region ramped up efforts to stifle free speech and other freedoms with little regard for transitioning to promised democratic rule,” said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Greater regional efforts are needed to press the authorities in West Africa to open up political and democratic space and protect people’s human rights.”

In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.

• Authorities in Niger and Mali have recommended extending their transition periods to democratic rule by five years and banned multiparty politics, while Chad abolished presidential term limits.
• Governments have continued their crackdown against free speech, dissent, and the media. In Burkina Faso and Mali, journalists, activists, and critics of the junta were arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared, or unlawfully conscripted, while political figures and opponents were targeted for their speech. In Nigeria, the authorities have arrested and prosecuted journalists and social media users, often under the broadly applied cybercrimes act. In Niger, former President Mohamed Bazoum remains arbitrarily detained without trial. In Chad, the former prime minister and opposition leader Succès Masra was sentenced to 20 years in prison on politically motivated charges.
• Two Islamist armed groups, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, or JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Sahel Province, massacred civilians in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Burkinabè armed forces, pro-government militias, Malian armed forces, and the allied Russia-backed Wagner Group, now called the Africa Corps, summarily executed ethnic Fulani civilians.
• In Nigeria, deadly attacks against civilians in Borno State signaled a resurgence of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad faction of Boko Haram, while in the Northwest, killings, kidnappings, and violent raids by bandit gangs persisted amid government failures to protect communities or hold those responsible accountable.
• Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso continued their strategy of disengagement by finalizing their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States and announcing their withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, severely jeopardizing access to justice for victims of abuses.

The African Union and other regional and international bodies need to make greater efforts to keep civilians safe from attack and human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said.