As Russia’s Africa Corps fights in Mali, witnesses describe atrocities from beheadings to rapes
DOUANKARA, Mauritania (AP) — A new Russian military unit is replacing the Russian one Wagner mercenary group commits abuses, including rape and beheadings, in collaboration with Financial Dozens of civilians fleeing the fighting told The Associated Press that his military would hunt down extremists.
African Corps The refugees said he used the same tactics as Wagner in statements that have not been reported in the international media until now. The two refugees were shown videos of villages being burned by “white men”. The other two said they found the bodies of their loved ones with their livers and kidneys missing, this is abuse AP previously reported Around Wagner.
“This is a scorched earth policy,” said a fleeing Malian village chief. “The soldiers don’t talk to anyone. They shoot anyone they see. There are no questions, no warnings. People don’t even know why they are being killed.”
West Africa’s vast Sahel region has become the deadliest place in the world for extremism, with thousands of people dead. The military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have turned to one of their Western allies, Russia, for help fighting fighters linked to Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group.
When the African Union replaced Wagner six months ago, weary civilians hoped for less brutality. United Nations says They were abused by all parties to the conflict.
But the refugees said the Afrika Korps had launched a new reign of terror in the vast and largely lawless region, and legal analysts said Moscow was directly responsible.
The AP has had rare access to the Mauritanian border, where thousands of Malians have fled as fighting intensified in recent months. He spoke to 34 refugees who described indiscriminate killings, abductions and sexual abuse. Most spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.
The headman of the village said, “These are the same men who are paid by the government and they continue the massacres. There is no difference between Wagner and the African Union.”
Malian officials have never publicly acknowledged the existence of Wagner or Africa Corps. But Russian state media has published reports from Mali in recent weeks praising the African Corps for protecting the country against “terrorists”, and the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the unit had become operational “at the request of Malian authorities”, providing ground escorts, search and rescue operations and other work.
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to AP’s questions.
Calling locals ‘dog’ in Russian
It was early in the morning and Mougaloa was preparing sweet black tea when she heard gunshots. Seconds later, two cars full of masked white men yelling in a foreign language pulled up in front of his tent.
As a shepherd from northern Mali, he has witnessed the horrors of violence over the past decade but said no one was as brutal as these men.
Mougaloa said the armed men had arrived earlier. Usually the family would run away when they heard them coming. However, they were caught three months ago.
He said the men arrived with Malian soldiers and captured his 20-year-old son, Koubadi. The Malians asked him if he had seen any militants. When he said no, they beat him until he fainted.
The men then slit Mougaloa’s throat as he watched helplessly.
He said the family fled but gunmen found them again in late October.
This time they didn’t ask questions. They were wearing masks and military uniforms. They took everything the family owned, from animals to jewelry.
And they kept repeating the word “pes”, which is a derogatory term for dog in Russian.
They dragged Mougaloa’s 16-year-old daughter, Akhadya, while she was trying to resist. They then saw Mougaloa’s elder daughter, Fatima, and lost interest in Akhadya.
They took Fatma to her tent. Without thinking, Mougaloa grabbed Akhadya’s hand and started running, leaving Fatma behind. They haven’t heard from him since.
“We were so scared,” Mougaloa said, shivering. “We hope it will come here at some point.”
Experts say it is impossible to know how many people have been killed and attacked in Mali, especially in remote areas, and journalists and aid workers’ access to the country is increasingly restricted.
Şükrü Cansızoğlu, Mauritania representative of the UN Refugee Agency, said, “There are many people who were raped, attacked and killed. Families are torn apart, there is no doubt about that.” But “sometimes it’s really hard to identify who the perpetrators are.”
Heni Nsaibia of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) said civilians were in a “very difficult situation”, under pressure from both the militants and the Afrika Korps and Malian fighters.
Nsaibia said people would face reprisals if they did not comply with JNIM’s evacuation orders. However, if they escape, the Malian army and the African Corps will consider them accomplices of JNIM.
Mougaloa’s family experienced this firsthand.
“If you don’t tell the army that you saw jihadists, the army will kill you,” he said. “But if you tell them, the jihadists will find you and kill you.”
Questions about the African Union
Reported abuses against civilians intensified after Wagner joined the underfunded Malian army in 2021. According to private security analysts, Mali paid Russia about $10 million a month for Wagner’s assistance. Although the group was never officially under the command of the Kremlin, it had close ties to Russia’s intelligence and military.
Moscow began to develop the Afrika Korps as a rival to Wagner, following its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin He was killed in a plane crash in 2023, following a brief armed rebellion in Russia that challenged Russian rule. President Vladimir Putin.
It is unclear whether the terms of Mali’s agreement will remain the same for Africa Corps. Much about their operations remains unknown, including the number of fighters that analysts estimate to be around 2,000.
Not all Afrika Korps fighters are Russian. Several refugees told the AP they saw black men speaking foreign languages. The European Council on Foreign Relations noted in a recent report that the unit recruits staff from Russia, Belarus and African countries.
African Corps and Malian forces have stepped up their joint offensive in northern Mali, home to significant gold reserves, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats project.
Although civilian deaths attributable to Russians have decreased this year – 447 so far compared to 911 last year – the figures may not reflect the full scale, Nsaibia said: “People are more afraid to report so as not to risk their own safety.”
Fewer foreigners are watching. A UN peacekeeping mission withdrew from Mali in 2023 under pressure from the government. Mali’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court this year has further complicated efforts to track abuses. The ICC has been investigating serious crimes committed in Mali since conflict with armed groups began in 2012.
Eduardo Gonzalez Cueva, the U.N.’s independent expert on human rights in Mali, told the AP that he had asked the country’s military officials for permission to visit twice this year and sent them a survey. They did not answer.
In his last report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in March, Cueva stated that the Malian government considered the investigations into alleged violations “inappropriate and harmful to the morale of soldiers” and stated that “the increase in serious human rights violations and abuses by all actors has accelerated due to impunity.”
‘Only the name has changed’
When Wagner announced his departure from Mali, some refugees decided to return home. Many noticed that nothing had changed.
“It was the same thing,” said Bocar, speaking with resignation while holding his youngest son. He said he saw bodies with missing organs.
He said he counted all the men killed or kidnapped by Wagner and the Malian army in his hometown of Lere before his first escape in 2023. He said the list reached 214 people.
“Only the name was changed,” he said of Africa Corps. “The clothes, the vehicles, the people remained the same. The methods remained the same, even worse. So we left home again.”
Other refugees said they were so afraid of the Russians that they would run or climb the nearest tree whenever they heard any engine-like noise.
One woman said she became so frantic to escape Wagner fighters that she once left her 3-month-old baby at home. When he returned hours later, his daughter was lying in front of the house, her little hands clenched into fists.
“I was so scared that I forgot I had a baby,” the woman said while hugging her daughter.
Legal experts said the switch from Wagner to the Afrika Korps makes the Russian government directly responsible for the fighters’ actions.
“Despite the rebranding, there is striking continuity in personnel, commanders, tactics and even insignia between Wagner and the African Union,” said Lindsay Freeman, senior director of international engagement at the Center for Human Rights at UC Berkeley Law School, which monitors the conflict in Mali.
Freeman said that since the African Union is directly affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Defense, it can be considered an organ of the Russian state according to international law. “This means that any war crimes committed by the Afrika Korps in Mali can in principle be attributed to the Russian government under the rules of state responsibility.”
‘Life has lost its meaning’
When white men came to Kurmare village less than a month ago, Fatma said everyone fled except her.
Upon hearing the gunshots, his 18-year-old daughter had a seizure and fell unconscious. Fatma stayed with him while the men looted the village and shot at the fleeing people.
Men went from house to house, took the women’s jewelry and killed the men. When they entered Fatma’s house, they thought her daughter was dead and left her alone.
Fatma didn’t want to talk about what the white men did to her.
“It’s between me and God,” he muttered, trembling.
When they left his village hours later, he found his son’s dead body in his shop. He later found his injured brother. While he was on his way to Mauritania, his daughter, whose seizures continued, also died.
“Before the conflict started, I had strength, I had courage,” Fatma said in a weak voice. Now “life has lost its meaning.”
His family is from the Fulani ethnic group, which the Malian government accuses of having ties to militants. Some Fulani people, long neglected by the central government, have joined the fighters. Civilians are frequently targeted by both sides.
However, Fatma said that no one killed or injured in her village belonged to any armed group. “I don’t know what we did to deserve this,” he said.
Now in Mauritania, the memories haunt him. He has trouble sleeping and breathing and repeatedly clutches his chest. He spends his time looking at the only photo he has of his daughter.
“I’m just someone who’s alive and looks like I used to be, but I’m not really alive,” he said.
