Several hundreds of people, possibly more than 600 according to one local source contacted by Mediapart, were the victims of mass executions carried out last week in the Malian town of Moura in an anti-jihadist operation conducted by both Malian soldiers and foreign mercenaries who appear, from witness accounts, to be members of the so-called Wagner Group, a private Russian paramilitary organisation with close links to the Kremlin.
Moura is situated in the central Mopti region of Mali, in a zone which for several years has been under the yoke of jihadist groups engaged in a decade-long armed conflict with the Malian military and their allies.
NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a report published on Tuesday which cited local witness accounts, estimated “300 civilian men, some of them suspected Islamist fighters” were executed over a period of four days beginning on April 27th after Malian troops and the foreign mercenaries took over the town.
However, a Malian human rights activist, whose name is withheld here for his own protection, told Mediapart that information given to him indicated “more than 600” people were killed in the operation, of which “a large majority” were civilians.
In a statement issued on April 1st by Mali’s defence ministry, the operation last week resulted in the deaths of 203 “terrorists” and the arrests of 51 others. It said the operation in Moura was launched on the basis of “quite precise information” about “a meeting” held in the town between different groups of jihadists. It added that “two hundred motorbikes were burned and seized” along with “large quantities of arms and munitions”, although the army has produced no images of the claimed haul.
Mali’s ruling junta has denied killing civilians in the operation, and has also denied that the Wagner Group is engaged in the field in the fighting against jihadist insurgents in the country.
Several local witnesses contacted by Mediapart said a large number of corpses were dumped by the military in common graves dug by the town’s inhabitants, after which they were covered in petrol and burned. They recounted that, after the departure of the troops, dozens more bodies were found in the area and buried.
HRW, which said it had spoken to 27 people “with knowledge of the killings, including witnesses from the Moura area and traders, community leaders, foreign diplomats, and security analysts”, described the massacre as “the worst” recorded in a decade of conflict in Mali, a former French colony which gained independence in 1960.
Ten years of bloody conflict
It was after jihadist insurgents, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, took control in 2012 of the north of the country, and threatened to advance on the south and the capital Bamako, that France, at the request of the interim government, intervened militarily in January 2013 to help push back the jihadist advance.
The deployment was initially a military success, regaining control of swathes of territory in the north, but ever since the French and Malian forces have become bogged down in constant battle with regrouped jihadists in the country, as also in the wider Sahel region.
In February this year, France announced its withdrawal from Mali after a significant deterioration in its relations with the ruling Malian military junta since two coups, in 2020 and 2021. France is transferring the base of its military operations against jihadists in the West African region to neighbouring Niger, while a large United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force remains in Mali.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The collapse in relations saw the junta invite military help from the Wagner Group, a private Russian mercenary organisation closely linked to the Kremlin and mostly made up of Russian army veterans. It has been active in the Ukraine, beginning with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea in 2014 and reportedly in the current war, and also in Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic (CAR). It is believed to have begun operating alongside the army in Mali at the end of last year, officially for training purposes.
An ‘unprecedented’ war crime
A UN source in Bamako, whose name is withheld, described the events last week in Moura as an “indescribable carnage”. While the UN mission to Mali, MINUSMA, present in the country since 2013, has not yet been able to travel to the town to carry out its own investigations, the source said: “The initial elements we have received are clear. We are looking at a war crime the likes of which have never been seen here.”
Moura and other towns and villages in the surrounding zone have been under the quasi-control of jihadist groups for almost six years. They have ordered the closure of schools, and imposed strict rules on the populations, including the order that men must grow beards and wear short trousers, in the image of the jihadists. The market in Moura is well known to be a gathering place for members of the Macina katiba (battalion), part of the Nusrat al-Islam jihadist coalition which brings together the principal armed Islamist groups in the region that are linked to al-Qaeda.
“Abuses by armed Islamist groups is no justification at all for the military’s deliberate slaughter of people in custody,” said Corinne Dufka, HRW’s director of its Sahel branch.
While the precise details of what unfolded in Moura between Sunday March 27th and Thursday March 31st remain to be established, notably because of the secrecy imposed by the Malian military, numerous witness accounts have been gathered by NGOs and MINUSMA. According to a UN source, the events were not the result of a rogue operation but were rather part of a clear strategy “to impose terror” on local inhabitants.
The agricultural market in Moura takes place on Sundays. It is one of the largest in the surrounding area, notably for the sale of cattle, and on March 27th visiting crowds had swollen the town’s population of almost 10,000, made up of various ethnic groups. It appears that the presence of jihadists was larger than usual, but it is unclear whether this was for a meeting, as claimed by the Malian authorities, or because of a military operation against them launched at the end of last year in the centre of Mali.
The jihadists use the market to buy provisions, but above all they go there to sell cattle that they take from farmers in the form of a tax in the zones they control. “Moura is an important rear base for them,” said ‘F’ (whose identity is protected here), an inhabitant of Moura, who was present during the massacre last week, and who later fled the town after helping to bury the dead. “But that doesn’t mean that we are all their accomplices. When they arrived in 2016 they killed all of those who opposed them. What can you do?”
On Sunday March 27th, according to witness accounts, the assault on the town by the Malian army and its foreign mercenary allies – described by witnesses as white men who spoke a language they were unfamiliar with –began at around 11am. Between three and five helicopters, according to different accounts, flew above the town and shot at people trying to flee. That was followed by the arrival in the town of ground troops.
Summary executions
A local trader told the HRW investigation: “The jihadists were buying and selling in the market and when the helicopters showed up, the jihadists started firing and the army fired back. Everyone fled in panic, diving for cover. The villagers and traders tried to flee Moura, but by that time a few helicopters had landed and soldiers were everywhere. Another helicopter flew overhead, firing at people trying to escape. All the traders who’d come to market were trapped in the village.”
The soldiers laid siege to the town, preventing anyone from leaving, and over the following days carried out summary executions.
Mediapart obtained the witness account of another local inhabitant, who is identified here as ‘M’ to protect his safety, and who has now found refuge in a large town. “The Malian soldiers and the whites accompanying them arrested all the menfolk and ordered those who were hiding to come out,” he said. “Then they began to pick them out according to their physical appearance and dress. All those who resembled Fulani [editor’s note, a largely pastoralist ethnic group; in French, Peuls] or who were dressed as jihadists, with short trousers, were put to one side. Some were shot dead in front of us. Others were taken further away, to be executed also. The others, like me, were questioned, one by one, by the whites, with the help of Malian soldiers who translated. Some were killed, others kept their lives.”
Mediapart also spoke with a member of an NGO based in the central-Malian town of Sévaré, who has good knowledge of the region surrounding Moura, which he regularly visits. “To pick out men according to their clothes makes no sense,” he said, also speaking on condition his name was withheld. “Here, the men have no choice. If they don’t respect the jihadists’ [dress] codes they run the risk of being killed or harassed. Everyone looks like a jihadist.”
According to the two inhabitants of Moura questioned by Mediapart, there were jihadists among those executed last week but the majority of those killed were non-jihadist civilians.
During the first two days of the occupation of the town, they said, all the menfolk were hunted down. On the third day the military ordered the women who had remained in their homes to come outside. “They entered the village and began searching houses one after the other,” said M. “They killed the men who were still hiding there, and they took everything. They notably looted shops.” Malian human rights sources said they had been given indirect accounts of the rapes of local women.
The military operation ended on Thursday, March 31st, at around midday. “They left with about fifty prisoners, and they freed the others,” recalled M. According to the HRW report, “the operation involved over 100 Russian troops and numerous other Malian soldiers. Witnesses said the foreign soldiers appeared to be more numerous during the first two days of the operation”.
The French and German governments, along with the US and the European Union, have called for an independent investigation into what happened last week in Moura. Meanwhile, MINUSMA, which has come under criticism for not intervening despite having a base in the town of Mopti, about 50 kilometres from Moura, has said it is to investigate the events, and that crime-scene experts are ready to take part. But to conduct such investigations in the town would require the authorisation of the Malian government.
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- The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse