DOUANKARA, Mauritania (AP) — A new Russian military unit that has replaced the Wagner mercenary group is committing abuses, including rape and beheadings, as it teams up with Mali’s military to hunt down extremists, dozens of civilians who fled the fighting told The Associated Press.
Africa Corps is using the same tactics as Wagner, the refugees said, in accounts not previously reported by international media. Two refugees showed videos of villages burned by “white men”. Two others said they found the bodies of loved ones with their livers and kidneys gone, abuse previously reported by the AP surrounding Wagner.
“It’s scorched earth politics,” said one Malian village chief who fled. “Soldiers don’t talk to anyone. Anyone they see, they shoot. No questions, no warning. People don’t even know why they’re being killed.”
West Africa’s vast Sahel region has become the world’s deadliest place for extremism, with thousands killed. The military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have turned from Western allies to Russia for help fighting fighters affiliated with al-Qaida or the Islamic State group.
When Africa Corps replaced Wagner six months ago, weary civilians hoped for less brutality. The United Nations says they have been abused by all parties to the conflict.
But refugees described a new reign of terror by Africa Corps in the vast, largely lawless territory, and legal analysts said Moscow was directly responsible.
The PA has gained rare access to the border with Mauritania, where thousands of Malians have fled in recent months as fighting has intensified. He spoke to 34 refugees who described indiscriminate killings, abductions and sexual abuse. Most spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“They are the same people, paid by the government, and they continue the massacres. There is no difference between Wagner and Africa Corps,” said the village chief.
Malian authorities have never publicly acknowledged the presence of Wagner or Africa Corps. But Russian state media in recent weeks have published reports from Mali praising Africa Corps for defending the country from “terrorists,” and Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the unit is active “at the request of the Malian authorities,” providing ground escort, search and rescue operations and other activities.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to AP’s questions.
Calling locals “dogs” in Russian
It was early morning and Mougaloa was preparing sweet black tea when she heard gunshots. Seconds later, two cars pulled up in front of her tent, filled with masked white men shouting in a foreign language.
A shepherdess in northern Mali, she has witnessed the horrors of the past decade of violence – but she said none were as ferocious as these men.
Gunmen had come before, Mougaloa said. The family usually ran when they heard them coming. But three months ago, they were caught.
She said the men arrived with Malian soldiers and grabbed her 20-year-old son, Koubadi. The Malians asked him if he had seen militants. When he said no, they beat him until he passed out.
The men then cut his throat as Mougaloa watched helplessly.
She said the family fled but the gunmen found them again in late October.
This time, they asked no questions. They wore masks and military uniforms. They took everything the family had, from animals to jewelry.
And they kept repeating one word, “pes” – a derogatory term for dog in Russian.
They dragged Mougaloa’s daughter Akhadya, 16, as she tried to resist. Then they saw Mougaloa’s older daughter, Fatma, and lost interest in Akhadya.
They took Fatma to her tent. Without thinking, Mougaloa took Akhadya’s hand and started running, leaving Fatma behind. They haven’t heard from her since.
“We were so scared,” Mougaloa said, shaking. “Hopefully it will get here at some point.”
Experts say it is impossible to know how many people are being killed and attacked in Mali, particularly in remote areas, while journalists and aid workers have increasingly limited access to the country.
“There are a lot of people being raped, attacked, killed. Families are being separated, there’s no doubt about that,” said Sukru Cansizoglu, the UN refugee agency’s representative in Mauritania. But “sometimes it’s difficult to really identify who the perpetrators are.”
Civilians, under pressure from both the militants and the Africa Corps and Malian fighters, are “between a rock and a hard place,” said Heni Nsaibia of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED.
If people do not comply with JNIM’s evacuation orders, they face reprisals, Nsaibia said. But if they flee, the Mali army and Africa Corps consider them JNIM accomplices.
Mougaloa’s family experienced it firsthand.
“If you don’t tell the army that you saw jihadists, the army will kill you,” she said. “But if you tell them, the jihadists will find you and kill you.”
Questions about Africa Corps
Reported abuses against civilians escalated when Wagner joined the underfunded Malian military in 2021. According to private security analysts, Mali paid Russia about $10 million a month for Wagner’s assistance. Although the group was never officially under the command of the Kremlin, it had close ties to Russia’s intelligence services and military.
Moscow began developing the Africa Corps as a rival to Wagner after its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in a plane crash in 2023 following his brief armed rebellion in Russia that challenged President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
It is unclear whether the terms of the agreement with Mali remain the same for Africa Corps. Much is unknown about its operations, including the number of fighters, which analysts estimate at around 2,000.
Not all Africa Corps fighters are Russian. Several refugees told the AP they saw black men speaking foreign languages. The European Council on Foreign Relations said in a recent report that the unit is recruiting from Russia, Belarus and African states.
Africa Corps and Malian forces have stepped up joint offensives in northern Mali, home to substantial gold reserves, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats project.
While civilian deaths blamed on the Russians are down this year — 447 so far, compared to 911 last year — the numbers may not reflect the full extent, Nsaibia said: “People are more scared to report, to avoid putting their own safety at risk.”
Fewer foreigners are watching. A UN peacekeeping mission withdrew from Mali in 2023 under pressure from the government. Mali’s withdrawal this year from the International Criminal Court has further complicated efforts to track abuses. The ICC has been investigating serious crimes committed in Mali since 2012, when fighting with armed groups began.
Eduardo Gonzalez Cueva, an independent UN human rights expert in Mali, told the AP that he had asked the country’s military authorities twice this year for permission to visit and sent them a questionnaire. They didn’t answer.
Mali’s government finds investigations into alleged abuses “inconvenient and damaging to troop morale,” Cueva said in the latest UN Human Rights Council report in March, noting that “the escalation of serious human rights violations and abuses by all actors is accelerating due to impunity.”
“Only the name has changed”
When Wagner announced his departure from Mali, some refugees decided to return home. Many found that nothing had changed.
“It was the same thing,” said one, Bocar, who spoke with resignation as he cradled his youngest son. He said he saw bodies with organs missing.
He said he counted all the men killed or abducted by Wagner and Mali’s army in his hometown of Lere before he fled for the first time in 2023. He said the list reached 214 people.
“Only the name has been changed,” he said of Africa Corps. “The clothes, the vehicles, the people remained the same. The methods remained the same and even got worse. So I left home again.”
Other refugees described being so terrified of the Russians that at any engine-like noise, they would run or climb the nearest tree.
One woman said she was so anxious to get away from the Wagner fighters that she once left her 3-month-old baby at home. When she returned a few hours later, her daughter was lying in front of the house, her tiny hands clenched into fists.
“I was so scared, I forgot I had a baby,” the woman said, clutching her daughter.
Legal experts said the move from Wagner to Africa Corps makes the Russian government directly liable for the fighters’ actions.
“Despite the rebranding, there is a striking continuity in personnel, commanders, tactics and even insignia between Wagner and Africa Corps,” said Lindsay Freeman, senior director of international accountability at the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Human Rights, which has monitored the conflict in Mali.
Because Africa Corps is incorporated directly into Russia’s Ministry of Defense, it can be treated as an organ of the Russian state under international law, Freeman said. “This means that any war crimes committed by Africa Corps in Mali are in principle imputable to the Russian government under the rules of state responsibility.”
“Life has lost its meaning”
When the white men came to Kurmare village less than a month ago, Fatma said they all ran away except her.
At the sound of gunshots, her 18-year-old daughter had a seizure and fell unconscious. Fatma stayed with her as the men ransacked the village and shot the fleeing people.
Men went from house to house, taking jewelry from women and killing men. When they entered Fatma’s house, they thought her daughter was dead and left her alone.
Fatma did not want to talk about what the white men did to her.
“It’s between God and me,” she muttered shakily.
When they left her village a few hours later, she found the body of her son, who had been shot at his shop. Then he found his brother injured. While leaving for Mauritania, her daughter, who continued to have seizures, also died.
“Before the conflict broke out, I had strength, I had courage,” Fatma said softly. Now, “life has lost its meaning.”
Her family is part of the Fulani ethnic group, which Mali’s government accuses of being affiliated with the militants. Some Fulani, long neglected by the central government, joined the fighters. Civilians are often targeted by both sides.
But Fatma said no one was killed or injured in her village belonging to any armed group. “I don’t know what we did to deserve this,” she said.
Now, in Mauritania, the memories haunt her. He has trouble sleeping and breathing and has repeatedly clutched his chest. She spends her time looking at the only photo she has of her daughter.
“I’m just somebody who’s alive and appears as a person that I was, but I’m not actually alive,” she said.