Applying for asylum in Burkina Faso

The first step is to register with SP-CONAREF, the national body that receives asylum claims and decides on them. You go in person to its headquarters in Ouagadougou (Gare Centrale area) or to one of its local offices in Dori, Djibo, Ouahigouya or Bobo-Dioulasso. An agent listens to you, makes a preliminary assessment, helps you fill in the asylum form, records your journey and adds your identity documents to the file. A pre-registration can also be made online before going to CONAREF.

After registration, a protection agent schedules a second, more detailed interview at CONAREF, then the eligibility committee, a panel representing several ministries, interviews you and decides. Committee sessions are held in principle every three months, so a missed appointment can lengthen the wait considerably, and repeated postponements without serious reason can close the claim. Once the file has gone to the committee, CONAREF calls the applicant about 60 days later with the decision.

Under the individual procedure, each family member, including minor children, gets an individual file, and everyone must be present to be registered. A collective procedure currently applies to Malian nationals, who come to CONAREF with the whole family and all identity and civil status documents. Documents lost before or during flight are declared to the CONAREF eligibility officer; a refugee card or certificate lost in Burkina Faso is reported to the nearest police or gendarmerie post.

You have the right to an interpreter you understand, to ask questions before the interview, to breaks, to an explanation of the procedure and of the next steps, to decide whether certain protection data may be shared with support services, and to check the final transcript at SP-CONAREF. You must state the facts truthfully, cooperate and bring the originals of your documents. While the claim is pending, an asylum seeker shows the "A qui de droit" certificate to the authorities. MBDHP, a UNHCR legal-aid partner, can help prepare the interviews.

If the eligibility committee rejects the claim, you can file an appeal so that the case is examined again by different people sitting on the appeal committee. The appeal is addressed to CONAREF within 60 days of the date you were informed of the rejection.

The asylum procedure is entirely free, and no one may ask for money at any stage; requests for payment by UNHCR or partner staff should be reported. CONAREF Ouagadougou can be reached on +226 25 33 07 00; the regional offices in Dori, Djibo, Ouahigouya and Bobo-Dioulasso have their own numbers on the UNHCR Burkina Faso help site.