AT least eight civilians have been killed in central Mali, several sources said on Sunday, accusing the Malian army and Russia’s Wagner group of the latest attack in the troubled West African country.
The country is embroiled in a political, security and economic crisis, and has since 2012 been ravaged by different groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. It also faces a separatist insurgency in the volatile desert north.
“A Hilux four-by-four vehicle … was heading toward a refugee camp in Mauritania when Wagner and the Malian army fired. At least eight civilians were killed” on Thursday, a local official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“All of the vehicle’s passengers died. They were buried in a mass grave”, a parent of one of the victims told AFP.
A local humanitarian source confirmed the incident, saying the eight civilians were “killed by bullets… between the localities of Niono and Nampala”.
There was no immediate comment on the incident from the Malian army and a defence ministry official contacted by AFP declined to comment.
In a statement issued on Saturday the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), which groups several separatist groups in Mali’s north made up of the Tuareg ethnic minority, blamed the Malian army and the Russia’s Wagner mercenary group for the “deliberate criminal act”, which it said left nine people dead.
The FLA “learned with great emotion the murder by the Malian army and the Wagner mercenaries of nine civilians, including women and children Thursday, between Gouma Coura and Dioura”, it said.
The Mali military seized power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021 and has since broken off its anti-jihadist alliance with former colonial power France and European partners, while turning politically and militarily towards Russia.
