Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the security situation in Burkina Faso.

The UK is closely monitoring events in Burkina Faso including the worsening security and humanitarian situation. Humanitarian needs are very high, with around 2,000 people in northern Burkina Faso now in famine conditions. The UK is committed to supporting stability and development in Burkina Faso and will continue to provide humanitarian aid to those most in need. During a visit to Niger in February, I [Minister Mitchell] announced a new Sahel Regional Fund which will provide urgent life-saving aid and lasting, dignified solutions to people displaced by conflict and violence in hotspots of humanitarian need in the Sahel region, including Burkina Faso. The UK has committed £33 million to this fund up to 2026. The UK is also monitoring the potential spread of conflict in the region which I looked at closely on my visit to Northern Ghana in December 2022 (which included the Forward Operation Base near the border with Burkina Faso).