A Russian military formation operating alongside Malian government forces is accused of carrying out beheadings, rapes and indiscriminate killings in northern Mali, according to refugees who have fled across the border into Mauritania.
Their testimonies suggest that the Africa Corps – the state-run successor to the Wagner mercenary network – is replicating the same tactics that drew international condemnation in earlier phases of Mali’s conflict.
Reporters from the Associated Press interviewed 34 Malians who had recently arrived in a string of settlements along the Mauritanian frontier, including Douankara, Fassala and the Mbera refugee camp. The refugees, many from the Fulani community, described masked “white” soldiers operating with Malian troops, burning villages, executing unarmed men at close range, abducting women and subjecting detainees to sexual violence. Some said they later found bodies of relatives with organs removed, echoing earlier allegations linked to Wagner’s presence in the country.
Africa Corps was created after the 2023 death of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the formal incorporation of many of his fighters into structures under Russia’s Ministry of Defence. Analysts estimate that around 2,000 personnel are currently deployed in Mali, drawn from Russia, Belarus and several African states. Although Malian authorities have not publicly confirmed the unit’s presence, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has stated that Africa Corps operates in Mali “at the request” of the government, providing armed escorts and other support.
The deployment is part of a wider realignment in the central Sahel, where the military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have expelled or curtailed Western forces and turned to Moscow for assistance against jihadist groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State. The region has become the global centre of terrorism, accounting for more than half of all terrorism-related deaths in 2023, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
Refugees told AP that hopes of a more disciplined approach after Wagner’s departure have not been realised. One village chief who fled northern Mali said men he believed to be Africa Corps soldiers arrived in his area with Malian troops and opened fire on anyone they encountered. “The soldiers speak to no one. Anyone they see, they shoot,” he said, adding that, in his view, “there is no difference between Wagner and Africa Corps”.
Several testimonies describe civilians caught between jihadist groups and pro-government forces. Fighters from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the main al-Qaida-aligned coalition in Mali, reportedly issue evacuation orders before attacks. Those who comply risk being treated as collaborators by the Malian army and its Russian allies; those who stay risk retaliation from the jihadists. This dilemma leaves many communities “between a rock and a hard place”, according to Héni Nsaibia of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), who has documented patterns of abuse by all parties to the conflict.
One woman told AP she saw Malian soldiers question her son about whether he had seen militants in the area; when he denied any knowledge, she said, he was beaten unconscious and his throat was cut. In a later incident, she said, masked foreign fighters accompanying Malian troops looted her family’s valuables, repeatedly used a derogatory Russian term for “dog”, and dragged away her adult daughter, who has not been seen since.
Other accounts focus on sexual violence and psychological trauma. A mother described fleeing so hastily from approaching fighters that she left her three-month-old child behind; when she returned, the baby was alive but lay on the ground with fists locked in a permanent clench. Another refugee in Mauritania said that after an assault on her village, she lost a son to gunfire, a brother to injuries sustained in the attack and a daughter who developed seizures during the flight to the border. She now spends her days in a camp staring at a single surviving photograph of her child.
Africa Corps and Malian units are reported to have intensified joint operations in northern regions that hold significant gold reserves and are contested by jihadist and Tuareg armed groups. Monitoring by ACLED and other organisations indicates that civilian fatalities attributed to Russian and Malian government forces remain high, even if recorded numbers have fallen from peaks registered during Wagner’s earlier period in Mali. Researchers caution that many incidents go unreported because survivors fear reprisals if they speak to outsiders.
Legal specialists say the structural shift from Wagner to Africa Corps changes the question of accountability. Because Africa Corps sits within the Russian Defence Ministry’s chain of command, its members can be considered agents of the Russian state. As a result, any war crimes or serious human rights violations committed in Mali could, in principle, be attributed directly to the Russian government under international law, according to experts at the University of California, Berkeley, who have previously filed material on Wagner’s actions to the International Criminal Court.
At the same time, the mechanisms for investigating abuses in Mali have weakened. The UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, withdrew from the country in 2023 at the request of the junta, removing a major source of independent reporting. Mali has also moved to leave the International Criminal Court, a step the UN’s independent expert on human rights in Mali, Eduardo González Cueva, has warned would further entrench impunity for all armed actors. He has reported limited co-operation from the authorities and difficulty obtaining access to areas affected by the fighting.
Across the border in Mauritania, the consequences are visible in swelling camps and makeshift settlements. The population of the long-established Mbera camp has risen sharply in recent years, and thousands more Malians have sought refuge in informal sites closer to the frontier as violence has spread across the Sahel. Humanitarian agencies report growing needs in shelter, healthcare and psychosocial support, particularly among women and children affected by sexual violence and displacement.
For now, those who have fled say they see little prospect of return. They describe a landscape where jihadist groups enforce their own rules, state forces and their foreign allies respond with collective punishment, and avenues for redress are minimal. As one refugee put it, life in exile consists of waiting – not for justice or political change, but simply for news of relatives left behind in villages now too dangerous to approach.
