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United Nations investigators into the violence in Mali have provided the Security Council with evidence that security forces have committed war crimes and that combatants and other armed groups have committed crimes against humanity.
The allegations were made in a 338-page report from the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali, a three-member panel that investigated violence that unfolded over six years from 2012 to 2018.
The investigation, the conclusions of which have been transmitted to the Security Council but have not yet been made public, recommends the creation of a tribunal specializing in the prosecution of international crimes.
“The Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that the Malian defense and security forces have committed war crimes, including violence against the life and person of civilians and persons hors de combat suspected of being affiliated or of cooperate with extremist armed groups, ”the report states, acquired. by the AFP news agency on Tuesday.
The landlocked Sahel fell into violence in 2012 when ethnic Tuareg separatists launched an armed uprising in the north of the country, which was later overtaken by an armed campaign of fighters.
France, a former colonial power, launched a military operation in 2013. The fighters then regrouped and extended their campaign in central Mali, igniting a region with ethnic rivalries, before heading towards Burkina Faso and Niger. neighbors.
Thousands of people have died and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
“The Commission considers that extremist armed groups have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the report said.
These include “killings, mutilations and other cruel treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, hostage-taking and attacks against the personnel of humanitarian organizations and MINUSMA”, the United Nations peacekeeping force. United in Mali.
The report was drafted by a commission made up of Lena Sundh from Sweden, Simon Munzu from Cameroon and Vinod Boolell, a Mauritian, who were appointed by the UN secretary general in January 2018.
They delivered their report to UN chief Antonio Guterres in mid-2020, and he sent it last week to the 15 members of the Security Council.
The survey details 140 cases of violence or abuse in chronological order between 2012 and 2018.
In 2013, security forces in northern Mali committed “numerous murders” of Tuaregs, Arabs and Peuls, also known as Peuls, suspected of links to armed groups, she found.
From 2015, violence against civilians moved to the unstable center of the country, starting with the Fulani community, which joined with the fighters after a fiery Fulani preacher named Amadou Koufa set up an armed group.
In an incident on June 17, 2017, an armed group called Dan Na Ambassagou, from the Dogon community, retaliated for the death of one of its members by attacking several Fulani hamlets, killing at least 39 civilians, including children.
The raids marked the start of “systematic” attacks against the Fulani in Koro, according to the report.
“The Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that these acts constitute murder which constitutes a crime against humanity,” she said.
He also cites three Tuareg and Arab armed groups as having committed war crimes – the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, known by its acronym in French MNLA; the Self-Defense Group of the Imghad Tuareg and their allies (GATIA), and the Arab Movement of the Azaward Platform (MAA-Platform).
Unlike other UN reports, the findings of the International Commission of Inquiry can be used as a legal basis for possible prosecutions.
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