It all started with a tweet broadcast on April 20 by a certain “Dia Diarra”: “The images of the corpses from the Gossi base are terrible, a crime against the Malian people done by the French!” (sic) writes the one who presents himself as a “former soldier” and “Malian patriot”. In the process, the same account (created in January 2022 and openly pro-Russian) will publish the image of lifeless bodies, blurred, then a video of corpses piled up with this comment: “This is what the French left behind them when they left the base in Gossi.”
Two days before this publication, the French army announced that it had left this base located in northern Mali, as part of the gradual withdrawal from the country decided in February, following a showdown with the ruling junta. France had justified this departure by the presence of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group working on behalf of the Malian state – at least 1,000 men according to it.
For Paris, no doubt: this accusing tweet is a regular “informational attack” aimed at discrediting France, and orchestrated by Russian mercenaries. The tricolor army claims to have been able to film, by drone, “white” men – identified in photos and videos taken in other places – carrying out this macabre staging. On this video, provided by the staff, we can see men in fatigues (without being able to tell, with the naked eye, whether they are white or not) covering bodies with sand. At least two of these individuals “take a photo, and probably a video of the mass grave” and the angle of the shot corresponds, according to the army, to the photo posted on Twitter by Dia Diarra’s account.
The goal? Accusing Barkhane’s soldiers of having left a mass grave behind them, says a senior French officer. “We are dealing with a structured, coordinated manoeuvre. We have observed an upscaling: first a first tweet that comes out one evening and sows a small seed, then a second the next day and a third in the afternoon with a film, he explains. In this information war, all shots are allowed.”
“We are touching on absolute horror in this escalation, analyzes Niagalé Bagayoko, president of the African Security Sector Network.” For the first time, the French are trying to “nip in the bud what they present as an intox in preparation” notes researcher Yvan Guichaoua, researcher at the Brussels School of International Studies, on his Twitter account. “They demonstrate something important: that guys on the ground are coordinating their activity with fake Russian social media accounts,” he continues.
“France realizes that it is very late in these influence operations and it decides to retaliate, adds Niagalé Bagayoko. Previously, it never wanted to broadcast drone images, even when it was accused of having bombed a wedding in Bounti in March 2021. This touches on the capital importance for democracies like France to demonstrate the greatest transparency, including in the event of a blunder. authoritarians who do not hesitate to manipulate information in the most cynical way.”
If the staging of this “true-false mass grave” is proven, it would be added to the list of abuses committed by Wagner’s paramilitaries not only in Mali, but also in the Central African Republic. In early April, the organization Human Rights Watch denounced a massacre in Moura, a small town in central Mali. Some 300 individuals were killed by the Malian army and its Russian auxiliaries according to the NGO. A report quickly swept away by the Malian authorities and the pro-junta media, evoking “misinformation”.
In the Gossi affair, however, several gray areas remain, underlines Niagalé Bagayoko: in what exact circumstances were the aerial images broadcast by the French army shot, knowing that the Malian government now requires strict overflight authorizations? ? Where do the bodies that appear in these images come from? “Perhaps the French army has other images or information in reserve, continues Niagalé Bagayoko, in this case it should communicate them.”
The Malian army staff was quick to insinuate the worst, in the wake of the tweet broadcast on April 20 by “Dia Diarra”. Coming out of their silence on the evening of April 22, the authorities announced the discovery of a “mass grave, not far from the camp formerly occupied by the Barkhane force in Gossi.” The press release, which declines all responsibility for the Malian armed forces, specifies that “the state of advanced putrefaction of the bodies indicates that this mass grave existed long before the handover” of the base by the French soldiers. A thinly veiled way of pointing the finger at Barkhane’s men. Not surprisingly…