The ruling military junta in Bamako on Tuesday (April 26th) accused the French army of "espionage" and "subversion" after the French general staff broadcast videos shot by a drone near a central base. of Mali recently returned by France.

The authorities have "noted since the beginning of the year more than fifty deliberate cases of violation of Malian airspace by foreign aircraft, in particular operated by French forces", announces a press release from the government of Bamako.

"One of the most recent cases was the illegal presence of a drone of the French forces, on April 20, 2022, above the Gossi base, the control of which (had) been transferred to the" Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) the day before, adds the text, signed by Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, spokesperson for the government set up by the junta.

"The said drone was present (...) to spy on our valiant FAMa. In addition to espionage, the French forces were guilty of subversion by publishing (of) false images fabricated from scratch in order to accuse the FAMa of being the perpetrators of civilian killings, with the aim of tarnishing (their) image."

"Information Attack"

On April 21, two days after it returned its Gossi base to the FAMa, the French army set out to counter what it called an "informational attack" and released a video of what it claims was Russian mercenaries burying bodies near this base in order to accuse France of war crimes in Mali.

These images, taken by a drone, show soldiers busying themselves around corpses which they cover with sand.

In another sequence, we see two of these soldiers filming the half-buried bodies.

The French general staff assures that they are white soldiers, suggesting that they are members of the private military company Wagner, whom it has identified on videos and photos taken at other places.

The day after the publication of these images, the Malian general staff announced that it had discovered "a mass grave, not far from the camp formerly occupied by the French force Barkhane", named after the French anti-jihadist operation in the Sahel.

"The state of advanced putrefaction of the bodies indicates that this mass grave existed well before the handover. Consequently, the responsibility for this act can in no way be imputed to the FAMa", added the Malian staff at the time.

With AFP

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