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Comprehensive report on conflict-torn Mali by UN investigators says it has gathered evidence of war crimes by security forces and others, and crimes against humanity by jihadists and other armed groups.
The 338-page survey of the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali covers six years, from 2012 to 2018.
The report was submitted to UN chief Antonio Guterres, who sent it to the Security Council last week.
AFP obtained a copy of the investigation on Tuesday.
Here are his main accusations:
Armed forces
The Commission asserts that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” – that is, evidence consistent with the standards of international law – “that the Malian defense and security forces have committed war crimes”.
This includes “violence to the life and person of civilians and persons hors de combat suspected of being affiliated with or cooperating with extremist armed groups,” he said.
He gives the example of what he calls the summary execution of 16 Mauritanian and Malian preachers, most of whom were Arabs, on the night of September 8 to 9, 2012.
The group was stopped at a checkpoint, where they said they were on their way to Bamako, the capital, for a religious seminar.
They were killed by at least five soldiers from the Diabali military camp in central Mali, “who suspected them of being affiliated with extremist armed groups,” the report said.
Jihadists
“Extremist armed groups have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the report says.
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.
One example, he says, is an attack by fighters linked to Al-Qaeda on an army camp in Aguelhok, on the country’s northern border with Algeria, in January 2012.
More than 100 soldiers died, many of whom were executed while wounded or surrendered, according to the Commission, describing it as a war crime.
The report also documents 17 cases of women or girls who were raped by members of the Islamic police in Timbuktu between 2012 and 2013, when the city was occupied by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Ansar Eddine group. . The attacks are crimes against humanity, he said.
Against a self-defense group
So-called vigilante groups sprang up in central Mali, an area with long-standing ethnic rivalries, after jihadists settled in the area in 2015.
The report cites a massacre on June 17, 2017, in which at least 39 villagers, including children, were killed in the Koro region.
He blames an armed group called Dan Na Ambassagou, who is from the Dogon community, who retaliated for the death of one of their members by attacking several hamlets in the Fulani community, also called Peuls.
The massacre 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 constituting a crime against humanity.”
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