In Mali, Russian mercenaries are helping the army kill civilians, rights groups say
DAKAR, Senegal — The Russian mercenary group known as Wagner is helping government forces in central and northern Mali carry out raids and drone strikes that have killed scores of civilians, including many children, human rights groups said in reports published this week that span the period from December to March.
Mali, along with its neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger, has for over a decade battled an insurgency fought by Islamic militants, including some allied with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group. After military coups in all three nations in recent years, the juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance instead.
Violence has escalated in Mali since Russian mercenaries arrived there after a coup in 2021. Its junta has ramped up operations, carrying out deadly drone strikes that have hit gatherings of civilians and raids accompanied by Russian mercenaries that have killed civilians.
After Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is buried, what’s next for his Russian private army, once a key Kremlin tool in Ukraine and Africa?
Residents of the Sahel region that includes Mali say Russia’s presence doesn’t appear to have changed since Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a suspicious plane crash last year.
“Mali’s Russia-backed transitional military government is not only committing horrific abuses, but it is working to eliminate scrutiny into its human rights situation,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Thursday.
In an example of a raid carried out by Russian-backed government forces in January, Human Rights Watch said the army entered a village near a military base in central Mali and arrested 25 people, including four children. Their bodies were found later that day blindfolded and with bullet wounds to the head, the report said.
Amnesty International said in report this week that two drone strikes in northern Mali killed at least 13 civilians, including seven children ages 2 to 17. A pregnant woman who was injured in the bombing miscarried days after the attack, it said.
Russian private military contractor Wagner is busy boosting its brand as its fighters try to subdue Ukraine, trading secrecy for war propaganda movies.
Human Rights Watch has said the Turkish-supplied drones in Mali are capable of delivering precise laser-guided bombs. The group has also documented how drone strikes have killed civilians. In one example, a drone strike in central Mali’s Segou region killed at least seven people at a wedding, including two boys, it said. The following day, a second drone strike targeted a funeral held for those killed in the previous day’s strike.
The juntas ruling Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso this month announced a joint security force to fight the worsening extremist violence in their Sahel region. This follows steps taken by the juntas to step away from other regional and Western nations that don’t agree with their approach and rely on Russia for security support instead.
Although the militaries had promised to end the insurgencies in their territories after deposing their respective elected governments, conflict analysts say the violence has instead worsened under their governments. They share borders, and their security forces fighting militant violence are overstretched.
Donati writes for the Associated Press.
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