Burkina Faso’s military government has rejected U.S. requests to take in people deported from America who aren’t Burkinabé citizens.
Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré made the point clearly on national TV. He called the proposal “indecent” and said it went against the country’s sense of dignity.
Burkina Faso recently made it easier for other Africans to visit by lifting visa fees, and Traoré stressed that this openness shouldn’t be used by another country to offload people it no longer wants.
Right after the rejection, the U.S. Embassy in Ouagadougou stopped most routine visa services for Burkinabé applicants and told them to apply in Togo instead. Traoré questioned whether that was pressure or “blackmail,” repeating that Burkina Faso is “a place of dignity, a destination, not a place of expulsion.”
The U.S. has been looking for third countries willing to accept deportees whose own nations won’t take them back.
Ghana, Rwanda, Eswatini, and South Sudan have agreed to such arrangements. Nigeria has also refused, with former Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar saying the country won’t take other nations’ citizens “under duress.”
Burkina Faso’s refusal fits the more independent line Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s government has taken since 2022. Officials there are making it plain they won’t serve as a holding ground for people the United States wants to remove.