Mali: human rights watch report details grave abuses against civilians by all sides

A new report by Human Rights Watch accuses all warring parties in Mali—including the JNIM jihadist group, the Tuareg-led Front de Libération de l’Azawad (FLA), the Malian army, and the Russian Africa Corps—of committing serious abuses against civilians since the coordinated offensives launched in April. The report, released Monday, June 29, documents illegal attacks on civilians, destruction and looting of homes and businesses, and at least 13 civilian deaths and 25 injuries in Gao and Kidal during the fighting that followed the April 25–26 assaults on junta positions.

Executions, drone strikes, and widespread destruction

A 38-year-old Kidal resident recounts being wounded in the crossfire: “I was hit by bullets in my right shoulder and left thigh,” he says, unable to identify who fired the shots because “gunfire came from all directions.” Human Rights Watch also accuses JNIM fighters of torching more than 40 civilian vehicles between May 6 and 21 on the roads leading to Bamako, and of publicly executing a man in the town of Tonka. “We recovered his body with a bullet in the head,” a local told the rights group.

The organization further implicates the Malian military in the killing of 38 civilians, including 23 children, during operations targeting Peul communities in central Mali. Two suspected drone strikes in the villages of Guimbé and Tené are also detailed. A Tené resident described hearing “a noise from the sky then an explosion” and finding “enormous damage, with dead and wounded.”

To compile the report, Human Rights Watch conducted 34 remote interviews and analyzed satellite imagery, videos, and photographs. The group says it sought comment from Malian authorities but received no response. In its own defense, JNIM stated that “there can be no war without human costs,” while the FLA claimed it had “taken sufficient measures to ensure civilians are not collateral victims of the fighting.”