UN calls for war crimes probe in W Africa

The UN wants events linked to Russian mercenary group Wagner in West Africa probed for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mali hired fighters from Russia’s Wagner group in 2021 to help it fight militant groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, which are waging a decade-long insurgency in the West African country that has begun to spread to neighbouring countries.

“Since 2021, UN experts have received persistent and alarming accounts of horrific executions, mass graves, acts of torture, rape and sexual violence, pillaging, arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances perpetrated by Malian armed forces and their allies,” said a UN statement.

On Sunday and Monday in Burkina Faso at least 28 people, including soldiers and civilians, were killed in two armed attacks.

This is according to a regional governor and the army in separate reports.

The army said a combat unit in Falangoutou, in the north of the country near its border with Niger, came under attack and that 10 soldiers, two fighters of the volunteer force and a civilian were killed.

The army said bodies assailants were found after the attack. In a separate statement on Monday, Col Jean Charles dit Yenapono Some, governor of the country’s Cascades region in the south near the border with Ivory Coast, said the bodies of 15 men, all civilians, had been found following an attack on Sunday.

The governor said armed men stopped two transport vehicles carrying eight women and 16 men. The women and one man were freed, he said.

“On January 30, the corpses of the victims, showing signs of bullet impact, were found near Linguekoro village,” the governor said.