In Mali, about 1,000 Wagner mercenaries have been deployed to at least 15 military bases, security outposts and checkpoints, including former French bases and facilities funded by the European Union, according to a French military official and a senior diplomat based in Mali.
Sorcha MacLeod, chair of the U.N. working group on the use of mercenaries, said human rights abuses and war crimes increased wherever mercenaries were deployed. “They have no incentive to end the conflict, because they are financially motivated,” she said.
A Slow-Motion Massacre
A hard-to-reach town of mud brick buildings in the floodplain of the Inner Niger Delta, Moura is known for its “galbal,” or livestock market, which draws thousands of buyers and merchants every Sunday.
The region is home to many herders and farmers of the Fulani ethnic group, who are prime recruits for the militants, and often, victims of the violence too.
Since 2015, the Katibat Macina, a local affiliate of the terrorist group Al Qaeda, has had a grip on the area, collecting taxes and forcing men to grow their beards.
“They are the government in the region,” said Hamadou, a herder who was held by the soldiers.
On the day of the attack, armed Islamist militants were roaming Moura, their motorcycles parked nearby. When the helicopters approached the town, some villagers climbed on the roofs their houses to see what was happening. Some militants tried to flee on motorcycles, while others fired at the helicopters.
Malian soldiers rounded up captives and held them under guard at two sites: an area southwest of the town, not far from the galbal, and a dried riverbed east of the town, the villagers said in interviews.
The mass executions began on the Monday, and the victims were both civilians and unarmed militants, witnesses said. Soldiers picked out up to 15 people at a time, inspected their fingers and shoulders for the imprint left by regular use of weapons, and executed men yards away from captives.
Meanwhile, Russian mercenaries chased people in the streets and broke into houses. “The white soldiers were killing anyone trying to flee,” said Bara, the cattle trader, who was taken to the riverbed.
On Tuesday, Malian soldiers used the mosque’s loudspeakers to order everyone still hiding in houses to get out. Russian mercenaries made sure they did.
Modi, a 24-year-old resident, said two white men with guns shot through the door of his house, narrowly missing him. He ran to the riverbed, hoping he would be safer with the Malian soldiers.
When Hamadou, the herder, left his house on Tuesday, he said he discovered “cadavers everywhere.”
With the stench becoming unbearable, soldiers ordered those who had wheeled carts to collect bodies, and others to collect dry grass. The soldiers doused some of the bodies with fuel and set them on fire, in full view of the captives.
More interrogations followed on Wednesday, which women and children were ordered to witness. Soldiers pushed captives wearing the short pants or boots that could affiliate them with militants to walk around a house which they said contained a machine that could identify jihadists, eyewitnesses said, noting that this was likely a bluff. The soldiers executed a few men, and forced others into helicopters.
The soldiers and their Russian allies left on Thursday, after killing six last prisoners in retaliation for four who had escaped. A Malian soldier told a group of captives that the soldiers had killed “all the bad people,” said Hamadou.
The soldier apologized for the good people who “died by accident.”
All of the victims were Fulani, according to the survivors. Corinne Dufka, Sahel director at Human Rights Watch, which published
a report on Moura, said the violence would likely push more Fulani into the arms of Islamist groups.
Deadly Joint Operations
Since the military began conducting joint operations with Wagner mercenaries, “the distinction between civilians and fighters” — already barely respected — has “completely disappeared,” said Ousmane Diallo, a West Africa researcher with Amnesty International.
In early March, 30 charred bodies were discovered near the military base of Diabaly, where Malian soldiers and Wagner operatives have been deployed, weeks after a similarly sized group of men was abducted, according to U.N. peacekeepers in Mali and the French military.
In early April, Malian security forces and Russian mercenaries executed seven young children near the town of Bandiagara, according to the French military. In mid-April, the Malian military said it killed 18 Islamist militants and rounded up hundreds of others at a livestock market in the town of Hombori. But among those injured and taken to a clinic were older people, women and children, according to witnesses. At least one of those killed was also a civilian.
Investigators from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali have so far been denied access to Moura. Russia and China blocked a vote at the U.N. Security Council on an independent investigation.
Some Malians in these regions are losing trust in the government.
“We thought the white soldiers would free us from jihadists, but they are more dangerous,” said Oumar, who said his brother was among the 18 victims in Hombori. “At least jihadists don’t fire at anyone moving.”
Ten days after the siege ended, two government ministers brought food and donations to Moura, claiming that the army had brought peace and security. On
Malian television, local officials praised the military operation.
Soon after, the militants returned and kidnapped the deputy mayor. He hasn’t been heard from since.
As villagers were at worship one evening in late April, said Bara, the trader, three militants arrived and announced that anyone who valued their lives should leave the village before 6 a.m. the next day. It has since emptied out.
“We had a home,” Bara said, “but we’re now strangers in our own country.”Elian Peltier reported from Bamako, Mali; Mady Camara from Dakar, Senegal; and Christiaan Triebert from Leeuwarden, Netherlands. Declan Walsh contributed reporting from Nairobi, Kenya, and Christoph Koettl from New York.