Amnesty International accused the Malian armed forces and members of Russia’s Africa Corps of committing war crimes during joint operations carried out between June 2023 and December 2025. It said the violations included killing, torturing and forcibly disappearing civilians, as well as looting and destroying their property.
Report documents deaths of 34 civilians
In a report issued on Tuesday, the organisation said most victims were Fulani, Arabs and Tuareg. It added that suspicions some people were cooperating with armed groups were based “solely on their ethnic background and their presence in an area where these armed groups operate”. The report documented the deaths of at least 34 civilians in seven areas across the Ségou, Mopti and Timbuktu regions.
According to the organisation, none of them was directly taking part in fighting when killed. Some were shot while trying to flee or after being arrested, while others were slaughtered or burned alive, or had their bodies burned after being killed.
Four people killed in Tin Adanda
In the village of Tin Adanda in the Timbuktu region, the organisation said it documented the killing of four people on 12 February 2025 during a joint patrol by the Malian army and Africa Corps personnel. A woman who survived the incident and later sought refuge at the M'Bera camp in Mauritania said she lost two of her sons and a relative after they were arrested and killed.
According to the report, the attack on the Ijder market took place during the day without warning. The following day, the Malian army announced that it had targeted “terrorist gatherings” inside a transit camp north-west of Léré, and that the operation had killed 11 “terrorists”.
Do civilians’ testimonies contradict the Malian army’s account?
By contrast, seven people interviewed by the organisation, including survivors and relatives of victims, as well as civil society organisations, said that all 16 people killed and the seven injured at the market were civilians. The organisation also interviewed 15 men who said they had been tortured and mistreated during joint patrols by the Malian army and Africa Corps, or while detained at the military bases in Léré and Nampala.
Witnesses said 30 people had been tortured and that five of them died inside the two bases because of torture and poor detention conditions. The methods documented in the report included suspending detainees by their arms from a metal bar so that their feet did not touch the ground, mock drownings, beatings with iron bars and sticks, and electric shocks.
The organisation attributed these practices in most cases to Africa Corps personnel, saying they took place in the presence of Malian soldiers, some of whom acted as interpreters or stood by without intervening, while others threatened detainees. It added that detainees were not brought before a judge and were denied contact with lawyers or family members during detention periods ranging from one day to four months.
The report was based on research conducted in 2025 and 2026 across 10 areas in Mauritania’s Hodh Ech Chargui region, which is home to around 290,000 Malian refugees registered with the UN refugee agency. The organisation interviewed 119 refugees from the Ségou, Timbuktu and Mopti regions.
