The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Malian army on Tuesday and the Russian paramilitary group Wagner of having perpetrated ‘dozens of summary executions and forced disappearances of men of the Gaple ethnicity’ since January 2025.
As part of anti -Ihadist operations, the Fulani are regularly targeted by the Sahelian armies, accused of feeding the ranks of Islamist groups that undermine the region.
‘The Malian soldiers and the Wagner group fighters accused the Peul community of collaborating with Islamist armed groups’, HRW said in a statement on Tuesday.
‘The Malian armed forces and their ally, the Wagner group supported by Russia, have perpetrated dozens of summary executions and forced disappearances of men from the Peul ethnicity since January 2025,’ denounces HRW.
The human rights organization says it has documented murders and fire fires, kidnappings and executions, arrests, forced disappearances and torture in four regions of Mali: Douentza, Kayes, Ségou and Timbuktu.
HRW stresses that it has conducted telephone interviews with 29 people who have knowledge of incidents, including 16 witnesses, seven community leaders, activists, journalists and representatives of international organizations.
‘The Malian army and the Wagner group, which have been conjuring operations against Islamist armed groups for more than three years’ would have executed at least 12 Fulani men and has been disappearing at least 81 others since January’, said HRW.
In the Kayes region, HRW reports the execution of ’65 breeders and Fulani cattle merchants in the village of Sebabougou ‘by the Malian army and Wagner fighters in April.
End of mission announced for Wagner
The Wagner group, which has supported the Malian state in its anti -jihadist struggle since 2021, announced the end of its mission in the country in early June. Its contingents are reintegrated within the Africa Corps, an organization under the direct control of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
‘The senior Malian and Russian officials should be aware that they can be held responsible for the crimes committed by their soldiers and their fighters,’ warns Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior researcher on the Sahel in HRW, quoted in the press release.
The organization also calls on the African Union (AU) to ‘put pressure on the Malian military junta to investigate these serious allegations, judge those responsible and grant repairs to the families of the victims.’
Mali is led by a military junta coming to power following two successive coups in 2020 and 2021.
HRW claims to have sent the Ministers of Justice and Defense of Mali a letter exposing its conclusions and questions, but declares that it has received no answer.
/ATS
