Eyewitness accounts emerging from Mali reveal harrowing allegations that Russian mercenaries have executed civilians and carried out brutal torture while fighting insurgents in the country’s central and northern regions.
Multiple testimonies gathered by the BBC describe incidents involving fighters formerly associated with the Wagner Group — now operating under Russia’s Africa Corps, a structure linked to the Russian defence ministry. Human rights groups have long accused both Wagner and its successor units of indiscriminate violence, but these latest accounts paint an even more disturbing picture.
One witness, identified as “Ahmed” for his safety, told the BBC he fled Mali with his family after surviving torture and witnessing executions by Russian operatives in Nampala in August 2024. According to his account, the fighters forcefully detained him while searching for his employer, whom they suspected of collaborating with jihadist groups active in the region.
Ahmed said he was beaten, bound, water-tortured, and repeatedly threatened with beheading while held at a fortified Malian military base. He recalled being kept in a cramped toilet block alongside other detainees, many of whom had been severely beaten.
He said two men — a Tuareg herder and an Arab man — were later brought before him and executed by beheading. The fighters then threatened him with the same fate unless he produced information about his employer. His life was eventually spared, he said, after a senior Malian officer confirmed the shop owner had no ties to militants.
Despite being released, Ahmed said the trauma forced him to flee Mali permanently. “I still see everything in my nightmares,” he told the BBC from a refugee camp in Mauritania.
Refugees who escaped to the M’berra camp described similar horrors. One woman arrived after her husband’s bullet-ridden body was found dumped in a river. Another man said he and his friends were beaten, dragged to a military site and tortured with metal rods and motorbike exhaust fumes, leaving one of his companions dead.
Many of the victims belong to Tuareg and Arab communities — groups long viewed with suspicion due to past separatist uprisings and jihadist infiltration in northern Mali.
Reports from European and African security monitors paint a chilling broader picture. Analysts say Wagner fighters previously used an invite-only Telegram channel to broadcast photos and videos of torture, killings and other atrocities before it was shut down earlier this year. Some fighters have since been absorbed into Africa Corps, and although violence trackers say the new force appears “less predatory”, abuses continue.
The Sentry, a conflict-monitoring organisation, said in a recent report that the presence of Russian operatives has created fear within Mali’s own military ranks, leaving commanders unwilling to challenge or restrain them.
Despite declaring its mission complete, Wagner officially withdrew from Mali in June, although up to 80% of its personnel are estimated to have joined Africa Corps, effectively continuing operations under a different banner.
The conflict has pushed nearly 50,000 Malians into Mauritania alone, according to the UN. For many like Ahmed, returning home remains unthinkable unless the perpetrators are brought to justice.