Amnesty documents war crimes by Malian forces and foreign allied fighters along Mauritania border (June 2023–Dec 2025)

Amnesty International said in a report published Tuesday that Mali’s armed forces, operating alongside Wagner Group personnel, committed war crimes during military operations along the country’s border with Mauritania from June 2023 to December 2025, including unlawful killings, torture and deadly drone strikes.

In the report, titled “No One is Spared: War crimes committed by the Malian army and foreign allied forces along the Mauritanian border,” Amnesty said it documented at least 34 civilians unlawfully killed in seven localities during that period, while stressing that the figure was not exhaustive. The rights group also said survivors and witnesses described torture during joint patrols by Mali’s armed forces, known as FAMa, and Wagner personnel, as well as in military camps including Nampala and Léré. Amnesty said five people died in military camps because of torture or poor detention conditions. It also said it documented two FAMa drone strikes in the Timbuktu region in 2025 that killed at least 23 people, including at least five children: one on Ejdeir market on March 16 that Amnesty said killed 16 people and wounded seven, and another on Tangata village on Nov. 13 that Amnesty said killed a family of seven. Amnesty said its researchers found no evidence that fighters were present at those specific strike sites.

Amnesty said the vast majority of the victims it documented were from pastoralist communities, especially Fulani, Arab and Tuareg civilians, and that people were targeted because of their ethnic background or because they were in areas where armed groups were active. One survivor testimony cited by Amnesty said of the foreign personnel: “They were mostly white men, accompanied by FAMa.”

The group said it carried out field research from June 2025 to April 2026 in Mauritania’s Hodh ech-Chargui region, where many Malians have fled, and interviewed 119 Malian refugees along with 15 additional sources, including political leaders, journalists and members of human rights or humanitarian organizations. Amnesty said it sent its findings to Gen. Assimi Goïta, Mali’s head of state, on Aug. 3, 2026, and had received no substantive response by the time the report was published.

“Our conclusions paint a harrowing picture of the lives of civilians trapped in the conflict, paying the ultimate price while impunity remains rampant. The Malian authorities cannot dismiss these serious allegations without opening impartial and effective investigations into the alleged crimes,” Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International’s regional director for West and Central Africa, said in a news release.

The report adds to scrutiny of Mali’s use of foreign fighters in counterinsurgency operations. Wagner personnel have been active in Mali since late 2021 or early 2022. Reporting in June 2025 said the Russian mercenary group was leaving Mali and being replaced or absorbed by the Kremlin-linked Africa Corps, a shift that overlaps with Amnesty’s reporting period and its references to “foreign allied forces.”

The allegations also follow earlier international findings about abuses by the same broad set of actors. In May 2023, the U.N. human rights office published a fact-finding report on the Moura operation in central Mali, concluding that Malian troops and “foreign military personnel” killed at least about 500 people in March 2022. The International Criminal Court, which investigates genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, opened an investigation into Mali in 2013, giving fresh significance to any major new allegations of wartime abuses.