By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 57 minutes ago
Women watch in Gao, Mali on December 4, 2021. THOMAS COEX / AFP
Since January 2023, jihadist groups in north-eastern Mali have been carrying out widespread “murder,” “rape,” and “looting” against civilians, Human Rights Watch said.
Jihadist groups have multiplied the large-scale “killing,” “raping,” and “looting” of civilians in northeastern Mali since January 2023, “forcing thousands to flee these regions,” according to a report by Human Rights Watch on Thursday. the 13th of July.
“Security has deteriorated sharply due to clashes between two Islamist armed groups,” said al-Qaeda, which is trying to control supply routes and increase its influence, the human rights organization said.
“A great humanitarian emergency”
“Armed Islamist groups are brutally attacking civilians and are helping to unleash a major humanitarian emergency,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch says it documented eight attacks between January and June, six in the Gao region and two in the Menaka region in the northeast, where the Islamic State has been advancing across the country for months. Sahara (EIGS). They said they had caused “hundreds” of deaths and forced thousands to flee the region.
The NGO reports testimonies collected by its investigators describing combatants armed with “assault rifles” and “grenade launchers” and dressed in civilian or work clothes with discernible turbans. They reportedly spoke several local languages (Tamashek, Fulfulde, Songhai and Hausa) as well as Arabic and sometimes carried the Islamic State flag.
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“Double Your Efforts”
The organization also expressed concern about the decision requested by Bamako to withdraw the UN peacekeeping mission (Minusma), which will stretch over six months to the end of 2023. There is a risk, the report says, of efforts to account for conflict-related abuses. Ilaria Allegrozzi therefore calls on the Malian authorities to “redouble their efforts to protect civilians” and “work closely with their international partners”.
The report also notes that it has documented “serious abuses” by the Malian security forces and suspected forces from the Russian private security company Wagner, whose actions have been denounced in various countries. The junta, in power since 2020, has turned its back on France and turned to Russia politically and militarily. She denies Wagner’s presence and speaks of the use of Russian military trainers in the name of cooperation between the states.
In a May report, the UN accused the Malian army and “foreign” fighters of executing at least 500 people in an anti-jihadist operation in the center of the country in March 2022, belying the Malian junta. Mali has been in a deep security crisis since 2012, fueled by jihadist and separatist or self-defense groups. It started in the north and spread to the center of the country and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.