Members of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Russian mercenaries now known as Africa Corps are accused of killing nine people, including women and children, in an attack on a vehicle in Mali’s Segou region in January.
Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesperson for the coalition of Tuareg groups in northern Mali, told Reuters that the victims were headed to a refugee camp in Mauritania when they were attacked.
It was the latest in a series of atrocities committed by FAMa and Russian mercenaries since the United Nations peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, left the country more than a year ago.
Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara also have been active since MINUSMA left. The terror groups killed at least 47 civilians and displaced thousands between June and December 2024, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). JNIM burned more than 1,000 homes, looted thousands of livestock, and increased attacks on civilians and security forces.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED) reported that attacks on Malian civilians have increased 38% since MINUSMA left, with the battles and attacks spreading to new areas in northern Mali.
ACLED said the Malian Army and Russian mercenaries commit “torture, summary executions, beheadings, ejection of prisoners from aircrafts and the booby-trapping of corpses.”
According to ACLED, Malian military and allied forces carried out 255 operations, killing 1,063 civilians between January 1 and the end of October 2024. During the same period in 2023, these forces conducted 216 operations that killed 912 civilians.
A recent HRW report included interviews with witnesses to some of the atrocities.
In search of ethnic Fulani men accused of supporting JNIM, Malian forces and Russian mercenaries on May 8 killed two men and a boy in Barikoro, a village controlled by the terror group. They arrived on motorcycles and about 10 military vehicles, including armored cars.
A mechanic said that he advised a Fulani man to leave his garage when he heard the forces were coming. After the man left, the mechanic heard several gunshots.
“I found my cousin’s body on the west side of the village with eight gunshots: in the forehead, the head, the back, and the legs,” a survivor told HRW. “Meters away we found the bodies of two Fulani men also riddled by bullets, so we dug three holes and covered them with sand.”
Malian and Russian forces on August 16 raided the village of Dounkala, where JNIM regularly attacks security forces. Witnesses said the forces went door to door and rounded up all men and interrogated them outside a mosque, where they killed a 19-year-old.
“His mother told me that when Wagner [fighters] ordered him to go to the mosque, he refused and called them ‘kuffar’ [nonbelievers],” a witness told HRW. “So, a Wagner [fighter] shot him. I saw the body with a bullet wound in the chest.”
Forces conducted similar operations on August 15 in the village of Toulé, killing seven men and torching dozens of homes. A farmer said he hid in an irrigation canal in his rice field. He heard people shouting and saw flames coming from the village.
“The following day, I returned to Toulé and found the bodies of seven villagers, their hands tied up behind their backs, blindfolded, and with their throats slit,” he said.
A 52-year-old man said three of his sons were among the 21 civilians reportedly killed in Tinzawaten, where 47 FAMa soldiers and 84 Russian mercenaries were killed in July during a fierce three-day battle with JNIM. Two of the man’s sons were younger than 18.
“I heard the two strikes, and the fear of a third one prevented me from rushing to the scene,” the man told HRW. “So, the bodies of my children remained there until the early evening when I finally saw them, all hit by shrapnel. … We buried them in a single hole without taking off their clothes, just 900 meters from the place of the strike.”
Dozens of Malian soldiers and about 10 Russian fighters attacked the village of Ndorgollé on October 8. Witnesses said uniformed soldiers arrived at 8 a.m. in more than 20 military vehicles, including two armored cars. They surrounded the village, killed two men and arrested three others.
“They asked an older man where his son was,” a herder said. “He replied he didn’t know. So, one soldier shot him in the chest point-blank. After that, his son came out and was shot in the head.”
