Whoa — it’s not just Israel and America they try to bully.
[Garowe] The United Nations...the Oyster Bay money pit...
team of experts has called for an independent investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Mali by government forces and Russian private military contractor the Wagner Group.
In 2021, the military took over the civilian government under a coup. The West African nation has maintained that the Russian forces are
not mercenaries but trainers helping local troops with equipment bought from Moscow.
Western powers say the Russian forces in Mali include the Wagner Group contractors.
"Since 2021, the experts have received persistent and alarming accounts of horrific executions, mass graves, acts of torture, rape, sexual violence, pillaging, arbitrary detentions, and enforced disappearances perpetrated by Malian armed forces and their allies," said the statement from the independent experts.
Mali’s army spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...said last year that the Russian state had nothing to do with military contractors working in Mali, adding that the African country had the right to work with private Russian firms.
Mali is engaged in a fight against gangs linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS (ISIS) who have waged a decade-long conflict that has spread to neighbouring countries.
Tuesday’s statement mentioned the Wagner Group by name and described credible reports of the involvement of military personnel believed to belong to the group in a massacre of hundreds of people in March.
Survivors have said that white mercenaries suspected to be Russians took part in the massacre in Moura, a market town in central Mali. The incident sparked an international uproar and prompted the UN to open an earlier investigation.
Mali’s army has denied any wrongdoing in Moura and said it killed 203 Death Eaters there during what it described as a military operation.
The Wagner Group has attracted international attention over its prominent role in fighting during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.