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Logo of the Wagner Group
Photo: Siegra Asmoel / picture alliance / imageBROKER
In Mali, jihadists say they have captured a Russian mercenary.
The fighter from the Wagner mercenary group was captured in the first week of April in the central Malian region of Ségou, the jihadist militia GSIM said on Monday.
The journalist Wassim Nasr shared a letter from the group on Twitter, which is dated April 24th.
Accordingly, the mercenary took part in a mission by the Malian army in the village of Moura.
There were clashes with numerous "mujahideen" and, according to the jihadists, "hundreds of innocent civilians were killed".
The Malian military government denies the use of Wagner mercenaries in the West African crisis state and only speaks of Russian "military trainers".
The notorious mercenary group is viewed by the West as an extension of the Russian government.
The Kremlin disagrees with this account.
According to the military junta, Mali's army had "neutralized" more than 200 jihadists in Moura at the end of March.
However, eyewitnesses told the human rights organization Human Rights Watch that hundreds of civilians were also killed.
Since then, the UN mission Minusma has been asking the Malian authorities in vain to grant UN investigators access to the village.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock recently announced that cooperation with the Malian government would end if Bamako continued to work with Russian mercenaries.
"We can no longer cooperate if there is no demarcation from Russian forces," said Baerbock recently during a visit to the Sahel country.
In 2012, an Islamist uprising began in Mali and spread to the neighboring countries of Burkina Faso and Niger.
Several thousand soldiers and civilians have already been killed in the conflict and two million people have been displaced from their homes.
fek/AFP