In Mali, Wagner’s army and paramilitaries accused of summary executions – Liberation
The macabre discovery, Monday, April 21, of dozens of bodies abandoned in the sun, near the Kwala military camp, 170 kilometers north of Bamako, suggests a new mass execution committed in Mali. On a video shot on site, at least eight dead, unidentifiable because in an advanced state of decomposition, have their hands attached in the back. Several local sources have confirmed to Release The authenticity of images.
Nine days earlier, Malian soldiers and Mercenaries of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner had led a roundup In the village of Sébabougou, about thirty kilometers from Kwala. About 70 adult men were reportedly arrested during the operation. A list of 50 names has been drawn up by relatives of the disappeared: according to their surnames, they all belong to the Peul community – regularly targeted, because they are accused by the Malian army and its Russian complicity with complicity with the jihadist groups which control these rural areas.
One of the prisoners led to the Kwala camp described the events to the France-Presse agency (AFP). « They whipped people », he says. The man claims to have been questioned, like the others, about his alleged ties with Islamist insurgents. Subsequently, he survived the execution: “The white soldiers fired on us in a burst. I fell like the others. Very quickly, the soldiers left. I was not dead but I was lying for several hours. I saw almost 70 bodies. « Today he fled Mali.
A second survivor, refugee in Mauritania He too testified to AFP: « I was in the group that remained (in the camp) when the others went out to be killed. » A third man, in his twenties, claims to have surrendered on Monday near the Kwala camp to seek his relatives: “What we have seen is terrible. Bodies, people killed, civilians. (…) They killed people for free. ”
General Assimi Goïta’s junta, who seized power after two coups in 2020 and 2021, broke the old military partnership of Mali with France and turned to Russia to fight against the jihadist insurrection which threatens its territory. In November 2023, with the support of its new allies, The army has taken over the symbolic city of Kidal, In the north of the country, with independentist rebel groups. But the Islamist groups continued to extend their grip. The Bamako military regime and Wagner fighters are increasing reprisal operations and abuses against civilians Hoping to cut the jihadists of their rural « supports ». In vain: so far, their crimes have mainly fueled hatred.
