Why supporters of Burkina Faso’s junta leader are campaigning against a Sky News journalist
Yousra Elbagir, a journalist with British TV channel Sky News, has become the target of a smear campaign by supporters of Burkina Faso's junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré after she raised questions about security in the country and the repression of free speech.
Issued on: 21/04/2026 - 19:46
6 min Reading time Share By: The FRANCE 24 Observers
Supporters of Burkina Faso's junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré have unleashed a tidal wave of hate against a Sky News journalist after she published a news report critical of his policies.
Traoré, who took power in a coup in September 2022, sat down for an interview with Sky News Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir on April 2. Elbagir asked Traoré about restrictions on freedom of expression in Burkina Faso and about the worsening security situation in the country, which has a growing jihadist insurgency.
Elbagir’s report, filmed in Ouagadougou, was published online on April 10. She reports on the security struggles faced by the government as a jihadist group continues to carry out attacks across the country, as well as the government’s repression of the opposition. During her interview with Traoré, Elbagir raised questions about both the failures of the military strategy put into place by the Burkina Faso army and the curtailing of the freedom of expression.
A wave of harassment
Upset by the report criticising their leader, many Traoré supporters started attacking Elbagir online, calling her everything from a "mercenary of the pen” to a “bat”, with AI-generated images to illustrate their insults. Other social media users shared rumours about her family, claiming that her father Ahmed Elbagir is actually an agent with the British intelligence and that her sister, also a journalist, is an “influence agent”.
Other Traoré supporters tried to harass the journalist on WhatsApp by circulating a phone number they claimed was hers. They also claimed that Elbagir’s number had been made public by a pro-Traoré group called the "BIR-C" (or Battalion for Rapid Communications Interventions) which appears to operate as a sort of online militia for the regime.
Communications battle
Facebook pages and groups that claim links with the BIR-C also say that they are engaged in a "communications battle” with Sky News. They claim that they managed to get Elbagir’s report taken down from YouTube by publishing hundreds of negative comments.
However, this claim is false. While Sky News did take down the initial version of Elbagir’s report, they published another version soon after and said it was due to a production error.
The caption on the video now reads, “This is a re-edit of a video posted on 9 April in which there was a production error. The original video mistakenly included some footage from Mali and Benin. In this version, that has been replaced by correct footage showing Burkina Faso.”
You can see the excerpts included by error (here and here) in an original version of the video posted on Facebook.
Traoré supporters have also been making another false claim. They say that Elbagir broke into tears mid-interview “after more than 15,000 social media users from across the world called her a liar and a manipulator after her reporting in Burkina". The photo of Elbagir crying, which social media users have been sharing as “proof” of this story, was actually taken from a report Elbagir filmed in Sudan in April 2025. We found it on YouTube using a reverse image search (to find out how to carry out one yourself, see our handy guide).
A controversy over control of the territory
Elbagir was also a victim of online attacks because she questioned Traoré’s security policies. During the interview, Elbagir said that jihadist groups now control 60 percent of the country. This differs from the official government narrative that the government has full control of 74 percent of the country.
Our team spoke to Héni Nsaibia, a senior analyst specialised in West Africa at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, an independent group that monitors armed conflicts. Nsaibia said that it is important to have a more precise and nuanced discussion about the question of territorial control:
"There are very few territories that are under full control of any party. When we speak about control, it’s actually more of a spectrum between influence, contestation and control.
The influence of Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), an Al-Qaeda affiliated group, is growing in Burkina Faso. While it doesn’t solidly control 60 percent of the territory, you could say that JNIM contests or asserts influence over 60 to 70 percent."
Nsaibia agrees with Elbagir that the security situation in Burkina Faso is only getting worse:
"The regime is trying to demonstrate that it is making progress, but we see that in reality the security situation is not getting better. Burkina’s armed forces are definitely trying their best, but so far, they have not held the ground. Government control over territory in Burkina Faso tends to be broken up; it is more like an archipelago. About 40 localities in Burkina Faso are under blockade by armed groups."
‘Attacking people’
Why is such a massive campaign being waged against Elbagir?
First of all, there is a push to attack any narrative that doesn’t align with the propaganda from Burkina’s authorities, such as the worsening of the security situation.
Ilaria Allegrozzi, Senior Sahel Researcher at Human Rights Watch, was also a victim of an online campaign of harassment after the publication on April 2 of a report in which the NGO stated that the Burkina army was thought to be responsible for the deaths of 1,255 civilians since 2023. The report attributes another 582 civilian deaths to the jihadist group JNIM. Allegrozzi, who receives dozens of derogatory messages a day, told us about how Traoré’s supporters operate:
"The supporters of the military junta are not taking it well at all that we revealed a worrying situation in terms of human rights violations, including abuses carried out by the security forces. It’s hard for them to counter the proof in our report, so they resort to attacking people.”
Traoré's supporters are also broadening their criticism.
"Their discourse is no longer just anti-France, but anti-Western. Human Rights Watch was targeted, just like Sky News, because it is seen as a Western institution," Allegrozzi says.
The harassment, she says, is “very well-organised.”
“It’s not just one person sending messages, but a group of people who are part of a government-sponsored communications strategy.”
Why Elbagir’s reporting was viewed as undermining government communications
Finally, the supporters' infuriated reaction to Elbagir’s report might also be because it runs counter to the way the government has tried to portray itself to English-speaking countries.
On X, one social media user wrote, “Yousra Elbagir has exposed years of ‘com' from Burkina authorities aimed at the English-speaking public. And her supporters have been pissed off ever since.”
As the FRANCE 24 Observers team has reported in previous articles, the Burkina authorities have launched several propaganda campaigns aiming to raise Traoré’s popularity abroad. They’ve met with some success.
For example, in May 2025, hundreds of fake, AI-generated music videos singing Traoré’s praises were produced in Nigeria. They were meant to reach people living in English-speaking African nations as well as those in the United States.
In reponse to Elbagir’s report, Traoré’s supporters said that they were ready to attack any criticism from abroad. One media outlet which supports the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which includes Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso – posted this warning:
"The time for complacency is over. The era where any foreign media outlet could strut into Ouagadougou to spit on our institutions is finished.”
This article has been translated from the original in French.
Advertising Keywords for this article