Ten days after publishing a report on the violence committed by jihadist groups in Mali, the human rights organization this time documents new cases of abuses committed by the Malian army and its Russian auxiliaries. Human Rights Watch challenges the African Union and ECOWAS.
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OuenkoroSéguéla, Sossobé… Human Rights Watch collected the testimonies of some twenty direct witnesses, but also of the families of the victims, of community representatives and of actors from Malian and international civil society.
The operations carried out last February and March in these villages in the regions of Mopti and Ségou, in the center of malirepresent, according to Human Rights Watch, only a fraction of the abuses perpetrated by the Malian army and its Russian auxiliaries, but the NGO has gathered overwhelming and concordant testimonies for these cases.
Violence and looting
Villagers of Séguéla evoke the eruption of several ” dozens of white fighters in military uniform “. In Sossobé, the Malian soldiers would have arrived with their Russian auxiliaries on board helicopters, in Ouenkoro too, on a market day. Witnesses recount indiscriminate shooting from helicopters, the gathering of men in front of a village mosque, the destruction and house-to-house searches accompanied by violence and looting accompanied by thefts of money or jewelry.
If the jihadists of the Jnim (Support Group for Islam and Muslims), linked to al-Qaedaare notoriously active in these areas, Human Rights Watch denounces the “ illegal executions ” and the “ enforced disappearances ” of “ several dozen civilians “, as well as acts of “ torture perpetrated in the context of anti-terrorist operations by the army, most often according to the NGO, against members of the Fulani ethnic group.
Open investigation
The NGO calls on theAfrican Union and the ECOWASasking them to increase the pressure on the Malian authorities […] for them to end […] serious abuses committed by the Malian armed forces and alleged combatants affiliated with the Wagner group “.
In response to this Human Rights Watch report, the Malian transitional government denounces an investigation “ dependent “aiming” to overwhelm ” the Malian army, denies the targeting of the Fulani ethnic group and judges that the methodology ” unreliability “. Bamako specifies that “ during the period in question, the government of Mali was not aware of any cases of human rights violations by the Fama but that, following the allegations contained in this report, an investigation for “ war crime ” And “ crime against humanity will be opened by the Malian justice system.