Amnesty International on Sept. 29 condemned the Malian armed forces and members of the Russian private military company Wagner Group for perpetration of war crimes, including the murder and torture of civilians.

Commenting on the need for accountability and justice for the victims of war crimes committed by Malian soldiers and allied forces, Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International's regional director for West Africa, stated:

We urge the Malian authorities to ensure comprehensive accountability for war crimes committed against all communities. They must ensure that the FAMa, foreign military partners and members of armed groups suspected of war crimes are investigated and prosecuted as required in proceedings that comply with the right to a fair trial, without recourse to the death penalty.

The report detailed the killings of at least 34 civilians in seven localities in Mali between June 2023 and December 2025 in the Mopti, Segou and Timbuktu regions of the country. It additionally accuses the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Wagner Group of carrying out other serious violations of international humanitarian law, such as torture, enforced disappearances, and the pillaging and destruction of civilian property.

IGOs and NGOs have repeatedly raised alarm over the situation in Mali. In January 2023, UN experts called for an independent investigation into the possible commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In March 2025, UN experts criticized the arbitrary executions of at least ten people in Mali and expressed concern over the FAMa General Command’s statement characterizing the murders as "false allegations." The UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries has also warned that private military and security companies’ ruthless tactics have exacerbated the climate of violence in the country.

Similarly, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticized the actions of the FAMa and Russian mercenaries in carrying out the summary executions of dozens of ethnic Fulani men, describing it as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing. HRW also condemned the use of violence against civilians, and warned that a deadly Russia-linked airstrike in Kyrnia earlier this year was a gross violation of human rights law.

Amnesty International recently cautioned that Mali’s formal notification of withdrawal from the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute removes the right for survivors to get reparations and denies them of the right to truth and justice. Nonetheless, FAMa has refuted allegations of wrongdoing, such as when 24 civilians were reportedly killed in an attack on February 17, 2025, in the Gao region.

The Robert Lansing Institute pointed out that the Russian operational model in Mali places reliance on asymmetric violence in order to force entire populations into submission. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) noted that the Wagner Group’s activity in Mali is only the latest in its string of such endeavors across different international crises—such its deployment to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in 2015, and its support of President Faustin Archange Touadéra against rebel offensives in the Central African Republic. Wagner and its successor organization, the Africa Corps, is believed to have had operations in up to 30 countries across the globe.

This April, a landmark human rights case was filed before the African Court on Human & Peoples' Rights (ACtHPR) by TRIAL International, the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) against FAMa and the Wagner Group for their role in repeated atrocities and massacres, most famously that at Moura in March 2022.

From JURIST, Sept. 29. Used with permission. Internal links added.