Burkina Faso expels top UN official without specifying any reason

Burkina Faso expelled UN coordinator Barbara Manzi on Friday without giving a reason, following reports citing unnamed Burkinian diplomatic sources that she interfered in the "political affairs of Burkina Faso''.

However, Manzi is reported to have herself requested and obtained the withdrawal of the non-essential personnel of the UN system from Burkina Faso.

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"Ms. Barbara Manzi, resident coordinator of the United Nations system, is declared persona non grata on the territory of Burkina Faso. She is therefore requested to leave Burkina Faso today, December 23, 2022," an official statement said, without specifying any reason for the expulsion.

The development comes a few days after Burkina Faso expelled two French nationals on suspicions of being spies.

It also embeds into a sub-Saharan pattern of expulsion of international humanitarian personnel on accounts of meddling into what is perceived by the local authorities as meddling into internal affairs.

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Earlier in July, Burkina Faso's neighbour Mali, also gripped by a security crisis, expelled the spokesperson for the United Nations Mission in the country for having published "unacceptable information".

Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries, has been gripped in the conflict with groups forming allegiances with al-Qaeda and the ISIS contesting for contrasting sovereignties in Burkina Faso.

The conflict has created one of the continent's fastest-growing humanitarian crises. About two million people have been displaced and are forced away from their homes to the UN-run makeshift camps.

The violence, which is continuing for about seven years, has remained centred in the country's north and east, bordering Mali and Niger respectively. Manzi, who has experience in humanitarian activities in developing countries, was appointed to the post in Burkina Faso last year.

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