Bamako – At least 10 civilians were executed over the weekend in central Mali by soldiers and Russian paramilitaries, with their bodies stuffed in sacks and thrown into a river, security and local sources told AFP on Tuesday.
Mali’s ruling junta, which came to power in two successive coups in 2020 and 2021, has turned its back on Western partners and moved closer to Russia, whose Africa Corps paramilitaries are assisting the country in its fight against jihadists.
Human rights organisations have repeatedly accused the Malian army and Africa Corps paramilitaries of killing civilians during operations in Mali.
Sources contacted by AFP spoke of between 10 and 11 deaths.
“Eleven civilians were executed on Sunday by an army detachment that had come to the area for a troop rotation”, a resident of Ke-Macina, in the central Segou region, told AFP.
According to the uncle of one of the victims, “10 young men were arrested” by the army, suspected of “passing information to the jihadists”.
“Malian soldiers and the Russians arrested these young men before killing them. A young man who managed to escape gave the account,” the uncle said.
A local official also accused the Malian armed forces and Africa Corps of being responsible for the killings.
“Once again, the Russians and FAMA (Malian armed forces) have killed innocent civilians. They put the bodies in sacks to dump them in a river”, he told AFP.
Another local official contacted by AFP recounted that 11 bodies had been discovered “in sacks in a stream” after local authorities had repeatedly appealed to the gendarmerie and the military.
Those entities eventually “led people to the site where the 10 bodies were located and finally handed over some of the victims’ personal belongings. It is utter distress”, the source added.
A security source interviewed by AFP stated that the victims’ throats had been slit.
“The military initially tried to make it appear that their disappearance was the work of jihadists, before deciding to show the bodies under pressure from the entire population,” a person close to one of the victims said.
Mali has been wracked since 2012 by a serious security crisis, notably fuelled by violence from jihadists allied to Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group, along with criminal gangs and armed separatists.
When the military seized power in Mali, it promised to restore domestic security and uphold territorial integrity, goals it has yet to achieve.
The country has been plunged into an even more critical security situation since late April 2026.
Since then, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and its Tuareg separatist allies have waged a series of attacks aimed at weakening the country’s junta rulers.
This has included taking the northern city of Kidal and assassinating the minister of defence.
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Source: AFP
