The United Nations on Friday accused the Malian army and “foreign” militants of executing at least 500 people in an anti-jihadist operation in the center of the country in March 2022, in a scathing report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. the man.
The High Commissioner “has reasonable grounds to believe” that at least 500 people, including some twenty women and seven children, “were executed by the Malian Armed Forces and foreign military personnel (…) after the area was fully controlled.” between March 27 and 31, 2022 in Moura,” said the report, which was prepared on the basis of an investigation by the Human Rights Department of the Peacekeeping Mission (Minusma), based in Mali since 2013.
The High Commission also has “reasonable grounds to believe that 58 women and girls have been victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence.” It reports the torture of detainees.
These actions could constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity “depending on the circumstances,” said Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, in a statement.
The report does not explicitly mention “foreigners”. However, he recalled the official Malian statements supporting Russian “trainers” in the fight against the jihadists and the remarks made by the Russian diplomatic chief Sergei Lavrov on the presence of the private Russian security company Wagner in Mali.
The UN reports testimonies collected by its investigators that describe these foreigners as white men in combat fatigues speaking an “unknown” language.
As documented in the report, the events in Moura, which have been subject to conflicting versions for a year, are among the worst of their kind in a country familiar with the atrocities committed by jihadists and other armed groups since 2012, documenting the harshest allegations against the Malian Armed forces that have been held responsible for their actions on numerous occasions in the past.