Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has revealed that Burkinabè investigative journalist Atiana Serge Oulon, missing since his abduction from his home on 24 June 2024, was secretly imprisoned and tortured in a house in Ouagadougou's upscale Ouaga 2000 district — not deployed to the front lines as authorities had claimed. According to RSF, Oulon was held in a darkened room converted into a cell, shared with up to forty detainees, where prisoners were beaten, whipped, threatened with execution, and forced to drink toilet water. The journalist had previously reported on an alleged embezzlement of 400 million CFA francs (around €610,000) linked to a military captain whose rank and region correspond to those of Ibrahim Traoré, Burkina Faso's current military ruler, making the case a stark illustration of what press freedom groups have called a widening crackdown on independent journalism across the Sahel.