Mali: At least 500 people reportedly executed by army and 'foreign' fighters in 2022, says UN

The Malian army and "foreign" fighters were accused by the United Nations on Friday (May 12th) of having executed at least 2022 people in March 500 during an anti-jihadist operation in the center of the country, in a damning report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Office "has reasonable grounds to believe" that at least 500 people, including about twenty women and seven children, were "executed by the Malian armed forces and foreign military personnel (...) after the area (had) been totally controlled" between 27 and 31 March 2022 in Moura, says the report based on an investigation by the human rights division of the mission of peacekeepers deployed since 2013 in Mali (MINUSMA).

Acts of torture

The Office also has "reasonable grounds to believe that 58 women and girls have been victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence". It reports acts of torture of arrested persons. These actions could constitute war crimes and, "depending on the circumstances", crimes against humanity, Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.

The report does not explicitly identify "foreigners". But he recalls the official Malian statements on the competition of Russian "instructors" in the fight against the jihadists and the remarks attributed to the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov on the presence in Mali of the Russian private security company Wagner. The UN reports testimonies collected by its investigators describing these foreigners as white men in fatigues speaking an "unknown" language.

As documented in the report, the events in Moura, the subject of conflicting versions over the past year, are among the worst of their kind in a country familiar with the atrocities of jihadists and other armed groups since 2012. The report is the most accusatory document produced against Malian forces repeatedly implicated in the past for their actions.