Violence soars in Mali following the arrival of Russian mercenaries
DAKAR, Senegal — Alou Diallo says he was drinking tea with his family one morning last month when groups of “white soldiers” invaded his village in central Mali, setting fire to houses and gunning down people suspected of being Islamic extremists. He scrambled to safety in the bush, but his son was shot and wounded while fleeing, then was finished off as he lay on the ground.
“I watched my 16-yearold son die,” Diallo told The Associated Press in Mali’s capital, Bamako. As he recounted that awful Saturday in his village of Bamguel, the 47-yearold former cattle breeder made no attempt to hide the anger toward the troops, which he believed to be Russian mercenaries.
“I really want peace to return and things to go back to normal,” he said. “Here in Bamako, I live a life I didn’t choose.”
It’s been more than a year since hundreds of fighters from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military contractor, began working alongside Mali’s armed forces to try to stem a decade-long insurgency by Islamic extremists in the West African country, Western officials say.
But since the mercenaries arrived, diplomats, analysts and human rights groups say indiscriminate violence against civilians has grown, the extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have only gotten stronger, and there’s concern the Russian presence will further destabilize the alreadytroubled region.
More than 2,000 civilians have been killed since December 2021, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a nongovernmental organization. At least a third of those deaths recorded last year were from attacks involving the Wagner Group.
“They are killing civilians, and by their very presence, giving Malian security forces a green light to act on their worst inclinations,” said Michael Shurkin, senior fellow at Atlantic Council and director of global programs at the consultancy group 14 North Strategies.
Military contractors from Wagner, which was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, have been bolstering Moscow’s forces during its invasion of Ukraine. But experts say they also operate in a handful of African countries.