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Dozens of civilians killed in April by Mali’s army, foreign fighters: UN report

Thursday, 01 September 2022 6:38 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 01 September 2022 6:38 AM ]

This file photo taken on July 16, 2016 shows a soldier of the United Nations mission to Mali standing guard near a UN vehicle after it drove over an explosive device near Kidal, northern Mali. (Photo by AFP)

At least 50 civilians were killed and more than 500 arrested in central Mali in April during a military operation conducted by the army and “foreign troops,” according to a report by the UN.

The incident took place on April 19 in Hombori municipality, in the central region of Douentza, after a Mali military convoy was attacked by a roadside bomb, the UN said on Wednesday.

“At least 50 civilians (including a woman and a child) were killed and more than 500 others arrested” on April 19, the UN’s peacekeeping mission (MINUSMA) said in a quarterly report on trends of human rights violation and abuses in Mali.

The military operation was conducted by Mali’s army and foreign troops, but the report did not specify the nationality of the foreign military personnel accompanying local troops.

In the report, MINUSMA documented 96 civilian deaths during operations by Malian security forces between April 1 and June 30. Seven civilians disappeared and 19 others were injured, it said.

The UN has repeatedly accused Malian soldiers of summarily executing civilians and suspected militants during their decade-long fight against groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

Mali’s military has in some cases acknowledged that its forces were implicated in executions and other abuses, but few soldiers have faced criminal charges.

A report by experts to the UN, seen by the AFP news agency in early August, said “white-skinned soldiers” accompanied Malian soldiers at the scene of killings in March in the Segou region near the Mauritanian border, in which 33 civilians died.

In April, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said about 300 people, most of them ethnic Fulanis, were killed in Moura in central Mali in March by Malian forces “or associated foreign fighters” – a veiled reference to suspected Russian operatives. Mali’s army says that it killed 203 militants at Moura.

Mali welcomes French military pullout, vowing improved security

Mali has welcomed the withdrawal of French military forces from the African nation, saying the pullout ushers in better security for its people.

France has been a former colonizer in Mali and its military mission in the country began in 2013 to allegedly counter militants that Paris claimed were linked to the al-Qaeda and Daesh terrorist groups.

The French soldier left the country on August 15 amid heightened anti-French sentiment in Mali and across the African continent.

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