
HRW condemns ‘atrocities’ against Mali civilians since UN withdrawal
Human Rights Watch on December 12 condemned “atrocities” committed against civilians by Mali’s army, the Russian mercenary group Wagner, and Islamist armed groups since UN peacekeepers withdrew a year ago. Mali’s ruling junta pushed the United Nations stabilisation mission (MINUSMA) to leave last December amid deteriorating relations and as the crisis-wracked country battles jihadist and separatist violence. MINUSMA had previously maintained around 15,000 soldiers and police in the West African nation, and was in part tasked with protecting civilians and human rights. Since May, the Malian army, supported by Wagner, has “deliberately killed at least 32 civilians”, forcibly disappeared four others, and burned at least 100 homes in north and central Mali, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published December 12. HRW said the Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) had “summarily executed at least 47 civilians…...