Missing Daughter of Exiled Burkina Faso General Freed After Over a Year in Disappearance

The family of Djibril Bassolé — Burkina Faso’s exiled former foreign minister and once-powerful general — says his daughter has been freed after vanishing for more than a year.
Yasmine Bassolé, abducted in Ouagadougou in September 2024 at the height of the country’s political turmoil, was dropped at her home late Monday night by masked men, relatives told AFP.

Yasmine was seized alongside her brother, Aziz, and a cousin during a period of mounting pressure on the Bassolé family. Her father, who served under ex-president Blaise Compaoré, has been repeatedly accused by Burkina Faso’s ruling junta of plotting against the state — accusations he rejects from exile in France, where he has lived since 2020 following clashes with the authorities who took power after Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s 2022 coup.

A family associate, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Yasmine is now undergoing medical checks after her prolonged captivity. Her cousin Benoît, abducted in the same sweep, was quietly freed in July under undisclosed circumstances.

But Aziz remains missing, and the family is renewing its appeals for information on his whereabouts. Rights groups say his disappearance underscores the climate of fear, repression and opaque detentions that have deepened under military rule.

While Yasmine’s return marks a rare moment of reprieve, the ordeal is far from over — with the fate of her brother still unknown and broader questions about enforced disappearances hanging over Burkina Faso’s fragile security landscape.

Source: Araba Sey