More than 500 people were killed in Mali by local and foreign military personnel in 2022.

A report of the UN Office for Human Rights released this Friday concludes that there are significant indications that more than 500 people were killed, the vast majority through arbitrary executions, by Malian troops and foreign military personnel, during a five-day operation in the town of Moura, in central Mali, in March 2022.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called the findings “extremely worrying”, stating that “summary executions, rape and torture during armed conflicts amount to war crimes and could, depending on the circumstances, amount to crimes against humanity.”

According to the Office of the High Commissioner, the Malian authorities denied the United Nations team’s requests for access to Moura, so the investigation was based on interviews with victims and witnesses, forensic information and other sourcessuch as satellite images.

Through the evidence collected, the investigators obtained sufficient information to detail what happened in Moura during the five days of the operation that began on March 27, 2022, a busy market day in the town.

events

The testimonies indicate that on March 27, a military helicopter flew over the town, opening fire on the people, while four others landed and disembarked troops.

According to the findings, the soldiers rounded up the people in the center of the village, and fired randomly at those who tried to escape. Among the crowd were some militants from Katiba Macina, an al Qaeda-affiliated group, who began firing back at the troops. The incident caused the death of at least 20 civilians and a dozen suspected members of the terrorist group.

In the next four days, at least 500 people were extrajudicially executed. The investigation team has obtained extensive identification data from the victims, including the names of at least 238 people.

Witnesses reported seeing “armed white men” who spoke an unknown language while operating alongside Malian forces and who, on occasion, they seemed to supervise the operations. According to witnesses, Malian troops were in and out of Moura on a daily basis, but foreign personnel remained throughout the operation.

The report indicates that, during the following days, the soldiers went house to house in search of “suspected terrorists”, arbitrarily selecting and executing people with long beards, who wore ankle-length pants or had marks on their shoulders, which they interpreted as a sign that they were carrying weapons; they also executed those who simply showed fear.

Witnesses stated that a group of men who had been rounded up in the southeast of the town were led away by soldiers and shot in the head, back or chest, and their bodies thrown into a ditch. In addition, the Malian armed forces and “armed white men” also executed those who resisted or tried to flee.

The report details that at least 58 women and girls were raped or subjected to other forms of sexual violence. Among the dozens of detainees, some were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment during interrogation while they were being held in Moura, Sévaré, as well as at the National State Security Agency, in the capital, Bamako.

Malian authorities investigation

The operation was described by local authorities as “a military anti-terrorist operation against the Katiba Macina group, affiliated with Al Qaeda.”

Despite announcing the opening of an investigation shortly after the attack, the Malian authorities have provided no information more than a year later and continue to deny that their armed forces committed any wrongdoing.

The High Commissioner noted that the research on such serious reports of violations of fundamental rights and international humanitarian law must be carried out independent, impartial and transparentin order to hold those responsible accountable.

“It is vital that the Malian authorities take all necessary steps to ensure that Malian forces involved in any military and police operations, including foreign military personnel under their command or control, fully respect the norms of humanitarian law and international law“, sentenced Volker Türk.