The Wagner Group is wracking havoc in northern Mali, with actions that hint on ongoing efforts to depopulate the region. Human rights abuses against local population are being committed by both the Malian national army and its Russian contractors from the Wagner group, as reported by MondAfrique. From June to December 2023, at least 129 direct attacks against civilian targets, resulted in some 650 civilian victims. Mercenaries of the Wagner Group are generally the first ones to be sent to execute a plan comprising of summary executions, mass killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, destruction of water and food sources, deliberate destruction of infrastructure, looting, and dispossession of property. The main targets of these abuses are identified as ethnic Tuaregs, Arabs, and Fulanis.
Thousands of families have been forced into exile in neighboring Mauritania and Algeria, with reports of systematic thefts, looting, rapes, burning, and mining of victims’ bodies. The situation has led to a significant influx of refugees, overwhelming Mauritania, and creating a real psychosis among the affected populations caught between Wagner’s patrols and airstrikes. The abuses are seen by some as a deliberate project of ethnic cleansing in northern Mali.
