Burkina Faso

Various ethnic groups settled and established kingdoms in the area of today’s Burkina Faso from medieval times onward. In the late 19th century, several European states attempted to move into the region, but it was the French who established a protectorate of Upper Volta in 1896. Independent from France in 1960, the country changed its name to Burkina Faso in 1984. Repeated military coups during the 1970s and 1980s were followed by multiparty elections in the early 1990s. Former President Blaise COMPAORE (1987-2014) resigned in late October 2014 following popular protests against his efforts to amend the constitution’s two-term presidential limit. An interim administration organized presidential and legislative elections - held in November 2015 - where Roch Marc Christian KABORE was elected president. The country experienced terrorist attacks in its capital in 2016, 2017, and 2018, while additional attacks in the country’s northern and eastern regions resulted in more than 1,800 deaths and over 500,000 internally displaced persons in 2019. The Government of Burkina Faso has made numerous arrests of terrorist suspects, augmented the size of its special terrorism detachment Groupement des Forces Anti-Terroristes (GFAT) in the country’s north, and joined the newly-created G5 Sahel Joint Force to fight terrorism and criminal trafficking groups with regional neighbors Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. Burkina Faso’s high population growth, recurring drought, pervasive and perennial food insecurity, and limited natural resources result in poor economic prospects for the majority of its citizens.
Source: World Factbook 2020