Mali: Human Rights Watch denounces the massacre of more than 300 people in Moura

Malian army vehicle in Timbuktu, September 9, 2021. (Illustrative image) AFP - MAIMOUNA MORO

Text by: David Baché

3 mins

The Minusma is still awaiting authorization from the transitional authorities to launch its fact-finding mission in Moura, a village in the center of the country, which was the subject between March 23 and March 31 of a vast military operation.

The Malian army said it killed 203 jihadists and arrested around fifty, but many local and humanitarian sources, Malian and international, denounce to RFI mass executions of civilians.

This Tuesday, April 5, 2022, it is the human rights organization Human Rights Watch which denounces a “ 

 ” in a chilling report.

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“ 

.

This testimony is one of those collected by

from 27 people - residents of Moura, traders who were there for the market, community representatives as well as diplomatic and security sources.

According to these testimonies,

, but at least 300 people - many sources even go well beyond this figure - who were killed in Moura by Malian soldiers and their Russian auxiliaries.

The witnesses affirm that among those killed, some were indeed jihadists, denounced by the inhabitants, but that for the majority they were civilians: "

", explains a survivor, who specifies that the inhabitants were obliged to do so.

For several years, Moura has lived under the yoke of terrorists from Katiba Macina, which belongs to GSIM, the Support Group for Islam and Muslims linked to AQIM, who regularly come to the village to collect zakat, preach and supply.

HRW calls for an investigation

Other survivors clearly point to ethnic targeting of Fulani by Malian soldiers and Russian fighters.

Similar testimonies had been collected during previous accusations of abuse in other localities in central Mali in recent months, particularly in the Ségou region.  

The Russians were even more numerous than the Malians in Moura.

At least during the first days of the operation.

The testimonies collected by

mention a hundred men.

And reveal a terrible mechanism: helicopter fire on a market day, then, for nearly a week, the inhabitants of the village - whose telephones were systematically confiscated - arrested in small groups of four to ten, sometimes interrogated, sometimes held in direct sunlight for several days, sometimes executed immediately.

“

 ”, testifies a resident.

Survivors claim to have been forced to dig graves and bury the bodies in them, many of which had been burned.

calls for an independent investigation.

No reaction from Bamako at this stage.

Last month, after revelations already on other allegations of abuses by the Malian army and their Russian auxiliaries, the transitional authorities had categorically denied and accused

- as well as RFI and the United Nations - of seeking to "destabilize the Transition".

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