Mali’s armed forces and personnel from Russia’s Wagner Group committed war crimes including the killing and torture of civilians during joint military operations between 2023 and 2025, Amnesty International said in a report published on Tuesday.
The rights group documented the killings of at least 34 civilians in seven incidents across the Ségou, Mopti and Timbuktu regions between June 2023 and December 2025. Amnesty said none of those killed was directly participating in hostilities at the time.
According to the investigation, some victims were deliberately shot while trying to flee or after being detained. Others had their throats cut or were burnt alive or after death. Amnesty said the acts it documented amounted to war crimes.
One case examined by investigators occurred in the small settlement of Tin Adanda in the Timbuktu region on 12 February 2025. Amnesty said four people were killed during a joint patrol involving Malian soldiers and Wagner personnel.
A woman identified under the pseudonym Hana, who later fled to Mauritania, told investigators that two of her sons and a cousin were detained and killed. She described the forces involved as predominantly white men accompanied by members of the Malian armed forces.
The report also examined two drone strikes carried out by the Malian armed forces in the Timbuktu region in 2025.
Amnesty said a strike on a market in Ejdeir on 16 March and another on a family home in Tangata in November killed at least 23 people, including at least five children. Investigators said they found no evidence of armed-group members or military objectives at either site.
The Malian military said after the Ejdeir attack that it had struck what it called a gathering of “terrorists” and killed 11 fighters. Amnesty said the location described by the military corresponded with the market strike and reported that seven witnesses, including survivors and relatives of those killed, said the victims were civilians.
The organisation also interviewed 15 men who said they had been tortured or otherwise ill-treated during joint patrols or while detained at the Léré and Nampala military bases.
Testimony gathered by Amnesty described detainees being suspended by their arms, subjected to simulated drowning, beaten with iron bars and sticks and given electric shocks. Witnesses told investigators that at least 30 people were tortured and that five died either because of torture or poor detention conditions.
Amnesty said Wagner personnel carried out most of the alleged torture, sometimes in the presence of Malian soldiers who acted as interpreters, stood by or threatened detainees.
Most of the victims documented in the report were members of Fulani, Arab and Tuareg pastoralist communities. Amnesty said some people appeared to have been treated as suspected collaborators with armed groups primarily because of their ethnicity and because they lived in areas where jihadist organisations were active.
Amnesty based the wider investigation on interviews with 119 Malian refugees conducted in Mauritania during 2025 and 2026. The organisation said it sent its findings to Mali’s authorities on 3 August but had received no response by the time the report was published.
Mali’s military-led authorities have previously denied deliberately killing civilians during operations against armed groups. Neither the Malian government nor Moscow immediately responded to requests for comment on Tuesday’s report, according to Reuters.
Wagner deployed roughly 1,000 personnel to Mali from late 2021 until June 2025 as Bamako deepened its security partnership with Russia after relations deteriorated with France and other Western partners.
Wagner subsequently announced its departure, but Russia’s Africa Corps — a force under closer control of the Russian defence ministry and containing many former Wagner personnel — continued operating alongside Malian forces.
Human rights organisations have separately accused jihadist and separatist armed groups operating in Mali of serious abuses against civilians. Amnesty said violations by all sides to the country’s armed conflict should be investigated and those responsible held accountable.
The International Criminal Court has investigated alleged crimes in Mali since 2013. Mali notified the court in June 2026 that it intended to withdraw from the Rome Statute, but the withdrawal does not take effect until June 2027 and does not remove the court’s jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed while Mali remained a member.
