Mali: assassination and questions

Map of Mali. RFI

Text by: Christophe Boisbouvier Follow

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In Mali and France, the death of Sadou Yehia, a Malian shepherd who testified against the jihadists, arouses strong emotion. On January 13, France 24 broadcast a six-minute report in northern Mali. We see a French patrol interrogating villagers with the help of an interpreter. No face is blurred, neither among the military nor among the villagers. At the end of this report, one of these villagers, Sadou Yehia, whose name is written at the bottom of the screen, agrees to testify in French and denounces the racketeering practiced by the jihadists.

In the evening of February 5, a jihadist group arrives in the village. According to his nephew Oumar, quoted by the stop on images site, Sadou Yehia, the breeder who testified, is kidnapped. Three days later, he was brought back to the village and killed in front of his family. Traces of torture are found on his body. Today, Oumar says: “ When the terrorists came to the village [on February 5], they designated my uncle by his first and last name. There is no doubt [that this report] has put the terrorists on its trail. "

Following the savage assassination of Sadou Yehia, the management of France 24 writes, in a message published on February 12, that " all [his] teams who had contributed to this report, in Bamako or in Paris, were deeply upset " Faced with the questioning of its report by the victim's nephew, France 24 affirms: “ It is adding a terrible and unjust accusation to the horror. The significant delays between filming [December 12], broadcast [January 13] and assassination [February 8] show the speculative nature of what is hastily presented by commentators as a sure cause. "And the international television channel added:" We cannot accept to be designated as the culprits [of this assassination] in an unbearable inversion of responsibilities. "

Should Sadou Yehia's face have been blurred? Terrorists don't need a France 24 report to know when Barkhane arrives in a village. They have cookies and are informed in real time of the presence of French soldiers, ”analyzes French researcher Yvan Guichaoua, quoted by the stop on images site. However, he considers it " scandalous " the absence of blurring, because it " increases the vulnerability " of witnesses. In its message, the management of France 24 writes: " In an area where terrorists know everything and everyone, without delay, from the presence of soldiers in the villages to the identity of the inhabitants who speak to them, nothing allows affirm that the blurring of Sadou Yahia would have guaranteed him some security. In this context, anonymization is illusory . "

The atrocious death of Sadou Yehia raises the question of collecting testimonies in the gray area, where people live under terrorist threat and face reprisals as soon as they speak, as the report from France 24 notes. According to Human Rights Watch, some two hundred Malian civilians were murdered in the last three months of 2019. " If the presence of the media jeopardizes the safety of residents, the question that arises is that of coverage of the zone and the collection of testimonies, writes France 24 . It seems essential to us that the rare media which still go there continue to cover the daily life of the populations which suffer [ vis-a-vis ] terrorist groups which intend to continue their exactions in silence and without witnesses. "

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