Madar (Ouagadougou) - Burkina Faso's Minister of Family and Solidarity, Lieutenant-Colonel Passowende Pelagie Kabre, has called for calm and restraint over social media calls for reprisals against the Guinean community, after large numbers of Burkinabe nationals returned from artisanal gold-mining sites in Guinea, Guinean news site Ledjely and the African Press Agency (APA) reported on Saturday, 7 November 2026, citing an interview broadcast by Burkina Faso's national television, RTB.
"I would like to call on all those sending out messages calling for reprisals against Guineans to remain calm and show restraint, and to reassure all communities, particularly the Guinean community, that here in Burkina Faso they are at home. There is no question of any Guinean being troubled by what has just happened," she said, according to the two outlets.
She added that the government is "in no way" linked to these calls and will take "all measures" to reassure communities, saying that taking part in such acts would call into question the pan-Africanist character of the authorities' Progressive Popular Revolution, APA reported.
On the scale of the returns, the minister said initial figures ranged from 3,000 to 10,000 before the situation evolved quickly: on arriving in Bamako she found more than 10,000 people in the Malian capital's streets, and the current estimate is "around 50,000", with biometric registration expected to provide consolidated figures, according to Ledjely.
She said 199 buses and trucks in five convoys, the latest made up of 30 buses, were on the road to bring nationals home. Sent to Bamako on the instructions of Burkina Faso's president to assess the situation with Malian authorities, she reported injuries, illness and trauma among the returnees and praised the care already provided by Mali, the same source said.
The remarks come after Guinean authorities shut down illegal gold-mining sites, notably in the Siguiri area, an operation Conakry says is meant to protect the environment and enforce regulations.
Madar reported on Friday the registration of 3,533 returnees from Guinea at Koloko and Bobo-Dioulasso and a reception plan for the expelled gold miners.
