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A comprehensive report by UN investigators on conflict-ravaged Mali says it has gathered evidence of war crimes committed by security forces and others, and of crimes against humanity by jihadists and other armed groups.
The 338-page investigation of the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali spans six years, from 2012 to 2018.
The report has been presented to the UN chief, Antonio Guterres, who last week sent it to the Security Council.
AFP acquired a copy of the investigation on Tuesday.
The following are their key accusations:
Armed forces
The Commission says there are “reasonable grounds to believe,” that is, evidence that meets the standards of international law, “that Mali’s security and defense forces committed war crimes.”
This includes “violence against the life and person of civilians and persons hors de combat suspected of being affiliated with or cooperating with extremist armed groups,” it says.
He gives the example of what he calls the summary execution of 16 Mauritanian and Malian preachers, most of whom were Arabs, on the night of September 8-9, 2012.
The group had been detained at a checkpoint, where they said they were heading to Bamako, the capital, for a religious seminary.
They were killed by at least five soldiers from the Diabali military camp in central Mali, “who suspected they were affiliated with extremist armed groups,” the report says.
Jihadists
“Extremist armed groups committed crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the report says.
These include “assassinations, mutilations and other cruel treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, hostage-taking and attacks against personnel of humanitarian organizations and MINUSMA,” the UN peacekeeping force in Mali.
One example, he says, is an attack by al-Qaeda-linked fighters on an army camp in Aguelhok, on the country’s northern border with Algeria, in January 2012.
More than 100 soldiers were killed, many of whom were executed despite being wounded or had surrendered, the Commission says, describing this as a war crime.
The report also documents 17 cases of women or girls who were raped by members of the Islamic police in Timbuktu between 2012 and 2013, when the city was occupied by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Ansar Eddine group. The attacks are crimes against humanity, he says.
Against a self-defense group
So-called self-defense groups emerged in central Mali, a region with long-standing ethnic rivalries, after jihadists moved into the region in 2015.
The report cites a massacre that occurred on June 17, 2017, in which at least 39 villagers, including children, were killed in the Koro area.
He blames an armed group called Dan Na Ambassagou, who comes from the Dogon community, which retaliated for the death of one of its members by attacking several villages of the Fulani community, also called Peuls.
The massacre marked the beginning of “systematic” attacks against the Fulani in Koro, the report says.
“The Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that these acts constitute murder that constitutes a crime against humanity.”
