The daughter of General Djibril Bassolé, a pillar of the fallen regime of ex-president Blaise Compaoré, was released Monday evening, more than a year after her abduction in Ouagadougou by hooded men, relatives told AFP on Tuesday.

No details were given about the circumstances of the release, nor about the kidnappers. Numerous cases of abduction have been reported in the country. NGOs such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) accuse the junta, which has been in power since a coup in September 2022, of using kidnapping as a means of suppressing critical voices.

Yasmine Bassolé, her brother Aziz and Benoît Bassolé, a nephew of General Bassolé, a critic of the Burkinabe junta exiled in France, were abducted in Ouagadougou in September 2024, when their father and uncle was accused of being involved in a plot that had just been foiled against the regime.

Benoît Bassolé was released in July, but there is still no news of Aziz Bassolé.

"Yasmine, the daughter of General Bassolé, was released last night. She has returned to her family but is expected to stay in a clinic for monitoring," a family member who requested anonymity told AFP.

"We are happy that she was finally able to return to her family, even if she is not in full health," explained a member of her family, adding that Yasmine Bassolé "is in good spirits despite all the hardship she had to endure during more than a year of detention in an unknown location."

Former chief of staff of the gendarmerie, General Bassolé was Mr. Compaoré's foreign minister from 2007 until the fall of the regime overthrown by a popular uprising in 2014.

He was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2019 for his involvement in a failed coup four years earlier. He was evacuated to France in 2020 for health reasons and has lived in exile ever since.

The Burkinabe junta is regularly accused of suppressing critical voices.

"The military junta in power in Burkina Faso is increasingly carrying out abductions of civil society activists and political opponents as part of its crackdown on peaceful dissent," HRW denounced in February 2024.

RSF, for its part, accuses the Burkinabe authorities of being "responsible for the abduction and requisition of journalists critical of the government".

Among the repressive measures, the junta is carrying out forced recruitment to fight jihadists who have been operating in the country for about ten years.