General Djibril Bassole’s daughter Yasmine, who was kidnapped in the capital along with her brother and a cousin in September 2024, was freed Monday night by masked men, family and friends told AFP.

The kidnapping came after her father, who served as foreign minister under former president Blaise Compaore, was accused of plotting against Burkina Faso’s ruling junta.

Bassole, who has lived in exile in France since 2020, has clashed with Burkina Faso’s military leaders since Captain Ibrahim Traore took power in a 2022 coup.

“General Bassole’s daughter has been freed,” a friend of the family told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“She has returned to her family, but will need to be checked into a clinic for care.”

The ruling junta has faced repeated accusations of repression targeting figures seen as hostile to it.

Bassole’s nephew Benoit Bassole, who was also kidnapped last year, was freed in July after being press-ganged into fighting the country’s long-running jihadist insurgency.

Critics say forced conscription is a common tactic used by the junta to silence dissent.

Bassole, a political heavyweight who was involved in a failed 2015 coup, gave an interview days before the kidnapping in which he accused the junta of failing in its fight against the Islamist insurgents, angering the Traore government.

Bassole’s kidnapped son Aziz remains missing.

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