SEBABOUGOU (Mali), April 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Bodies were discovered near a Malian military camp days after the army and Russian mercenaries arrested dozens of civilians, witnesses said.
Mali, ruled by a junta following coups in 2020 and 2021, has been grappling with widespread insecurity for more than a decade, largely fuelled by Islamist fighters linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
The country’s military rulers have broken their long-standing alliance with former colonial ruler France and turned toward Russia.
The junta enlists the services of what it claims are Russian military instructors, but who — according to a host of experts and observers — are mercenaries from the private Russian company Wagner.
On April 12, Malian army soldiers and Russian mercenaries arrested dozens of men at a market in Sebabougou, in the country’s southwest, and took them to the Kawla military camp, two survivors who fled to Mauritania said.
A first witness recounted that he and other men were interrogated about their ties to jihadists, adding that “they whipped people”.
He explained that Russian mercenaries took him and others out of the camp to be executed.
“The white soldiers fired at us in bursts. I fell like the others. Very quickly, the soldiers left. I wasn’t dead, but I lay there for several hours. I saw nearly 70 bodies.”
A second witness, who also fled the country, said he escaped death.
“I was in the group that stayed (in the camp) when the others left to be killed.”
A third witness said he went near the camp on Monday to look for his arrested relatives.
“What we saw was terrible. Bodies, people killed, civilians,” he said.
Like other witnesses and residents of Sebabougou, he fled to Mauritania.
“They killed people for no reason,” he said.
A local community organisation said that they have “a list of 65 people who are now missing”.
“They are mostly Fulani,” the group said, declining to be identified, adding that witnesses “discovered bodies scattered everywhere, in a state of putrefaction”.
“They were only able to identify one person among them,” the local organisation said.
The Fulani people are primarily nomadic herders. They are often stigmatised across the wider Sahel region, accused of collaborating with the violent Islamist groups.
The Malian armed forces have stepped up operations in the centre of the country in recent months, along with Wagner.
They are also accused of numerous abuses against civilians, particularly the Fulani.
In February, around 20 civilians were killed in northern Mali when their vehicles were targeted by the army and mercenaries, according to local sources. — NNN-AGENCIES
