Mali rejects UN report on Moura events

A Malian soldier between Mopti and Djenne in February 2020 (Illustration image) © MICHELE CATTANI/AFP

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In Mali, the transitional government denounced a "biased report, based on a fictitious narrative" in response to the UN which the day before accused the army and "foreign" fighters of having executed at least 500 people, including 2022 women and seven children in March <>, during an anti-jihadist operation in Moura.

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According to government spokesman Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, the Malian judiciary has opened an investigation following the events in Moura. "No civilian from Moura lost their lives during the military operation," he said in a statement read on state television. "Among the dead, there were only terrorist fighters," he added.

Communiqué No. 052 of the Government of the Transition pic.twitter.com/6N1p6iN5k5

— Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga (@Colonel_Maiga) May 13, 2023

The Malian government said it had learned "with shock" that the fact-finding mission had used satellites over Moura to obtain images "without authorization and without the knowledge of the Malian authorities" and said it was "immediately opening an investigation" for "espionage, endangering the external security of the state" and "military conspiracy".

The statements by Mali's transitional government are a response to a UN investigative report released on May 12 claiming that more than 500 people were summarily executed by the army and its proxies in Moura, in the center of the country, in March 2022. As documented in the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the events in Moura, the subject of contradictory versions for a year, are the worst of their kind in a country familiar with the atrocities of jihadists and other armed groups since 2012. The report is the most accusatory document produced against Malian forces repeatedly implicated in the past.

► READ ALSO: Mali: more than 500 people executed by the army and its auxiliaries in Moura in 2022, according to the UN

The Malian army had carried out an anti-terrorist operation in this locality and indicated an official toll of 203 dead, all jihadists. A balance sheet undermined by the UN report, based on an investigation by the Human Rights Division of the mission of Blue Helmets deployed in Mali since 2013 (MINUSMA), 157 individual interviews and 11 group interviews.

#Mali-MINUSMA-UN-Investigates/(1)Mali rejects the investigation into the events in Moura and reveals: "At no time did MINUSMA or the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights send him a request for authorization to take images of Moura using satellites."

— Serge Daniel (@sergedanielinfo) May 13, 2023

(with AFP)

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