France says Russian mercenaries staged ‘French atrocity’ in Mali
Russian mercenaries buried bodies near a Malian military base to falsely accuse France’s departing forces of leaving behind mass graves, the French military has claimed.
The French army said it used a drone to film what appeared to be white soldiers covering bodies with sand near the Gossi base in northern Mali.
The video was shown to reporters from Agence France Presse on Thursday after a Twitter account using the name Dia Diarra, who describes himself as a “former soldier” and “Malian patriot”, posted pixelated images of corpses buried in sand and accused France of atrocities.
“This is what the French left behind them when they left the base in Gossi … We cannot keep silent!” the account wrote.
France’s general staff called the Twitter video an “information attack” and said the profile was “very probably a fake account created by Wagner”, a private Russian mercenary group which arrived in Mali late last year to reinforce local troops’ faltering efforts against Islamist extremists there.
France’s army said comparing the photos published on Twitter against images taken by a special sensor allows them to “draw a direct line” between Wagner’s activities and what has been falsely attributed to French soldiers.
“This manoeuvre [is] to discredit the [Operation] Barkhane force. It seems coordinated. It is representative of multiple information attacks French soldiers have faced for several months,” it said.
France, the US and others have accused Wagner mercenaries of widespread human rights abuses in Mali as Paris winds down its almost decadelong military operation in the west African country.
More than 500 Russian fighters are now believed to be in Mali, mounting joint patrols on the porous frontiers and leading military operations against Islamist extremists in the central zone where the UN also operates.
Earlier this month, Wagner was accused of leading an attack on the village of Moura in central Mali during which more than 300 men were executed – mostly civilians, according to witnesses, community leaders and human rights organisations.
Multiple sources said the dozens of white soldiers who accompanied local forces on the operation were Russian.
Mali’s military-dominated government has denied the accusations, saying that only hardened extremists were killed, and said the Russians in the country are military instructors.
France officially handed control of the Gossi base to the Malian army on Tuesday as part of its withdrawal announced in February.
The French general staff warned about information warfare after the pullout from the base, which hosted 300 French soldiers.
Anti-French sentiment has grown in west Africa, where French forces have operated since 2013. Social media has emerged as a key battleground across the region.
In October 2019, Facebook took down three networks of accounts linked to the Russian businessman who owns the Wagner group. The accounts were actively seeking to influence the domestic politics in eight countries in Africa. In 2020, Facebook targeted a second Russian-led network of professional trolls outsourced to Ghanaian and Nigerian operatives. More recently, pro-Russian Facebook pages in Mali coordinated support for anti-democracy protests and the Wagner group.
Mali’s under-equipped army has also often been accused of committing abuses during the conflict and António Guterres, the UN secretary general, recently warned the UN security council that counter-terrorism efforts in the country had “disastrous consequences for the civilian population”.
A military spokesperson said Mali’s army was guided by human rights and international law, and called for “restraint against defamatory speculations”.
Several French TV and radio networks have been blocked by authorities in Bamako after reporting details of the Moura massacre.
On Thursday, Mali’s military rulers said they would comply with a demand from regional body ECOWAS to hold free and fair democratic elections within two years.