Russian mercenaries accused of murder and torture in Mali

Refugees from Mali have recounted atrocities committed by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group, including torture, killings in front of civilians and threats to their lives. The testimonies show an atmosphere of fear and chaos, with local communities and shopkeepers subjected to brutal violence. Even after Wagner’s departure, their influence continues through Africa Corps operations. Many residents have been forced to flee, seeking safety in refugee camps.

A shopkeeper has told the BBC how Russian mercenaries fighting jihadists in Mali killed two men in front of him and threatened to cut off his fingers and kill him too. This is one of several testimonies the BBC has collected that show the brutal methods used by Russian fighters in the fight against Islamist militants. Many human rights organizations have condemned the methods.

In 2021, the military took power in Mali and expelled French troops, accusing them of failing to stop jihadist attacks. The military government then approached Russia and hired the mercenary group Wagner, which was at the time linked to the Kremlin. Wagner later fled the country and its operations were taken over by the Africa Corps, which is controlled by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

According to a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, some Wagner mercenaries were posting footage of their crimes on a private Telegram channel until the channel was shut down this year. Photos and videos of murders, rapes, torture, and even cannibalism and desecration of bodies were regularly posted there. Another report, published by Africa Report, said hundreds of videos and photos of severed heads, gouged eyes, and racist comments were found.

The shopkeeper, who the BBC has named Ahmed for safety reasons, fled Mali and is now living in a refugee camp in Mauritania. He says the incident began in August 2024, when Russian mercenaries arrived at his large shop in the city of Nampala. They were regular customers, but this time they wanted to arrest the shop owner, accusing him of collaborating with jihadists active in the area.

“As soon as they saw me, they forced me into their car and tied my hands,” Ahmed says. “One of them took a knife, put it on my finger and asked me, ‘Where is the shop owner?’ I told him he was in Bamako, but he said, ‘Wrong answer.’”

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Salvation for "a thread of hair"

The mercenaries, speaking through a translator, took Ahmed to a fortified military base and put him in a hangar. “There were three Wagner fighters with me. They filled a bucket of water and told me to take off my clothes. Then they put my head in the water until I almost drowned. They stomped on my chest while I tried to breathe.”

They repeated the torture several times, asking him about the shop owner, while Ahmed gave the same answer.

After the torture, they put him in a small toilet where he saw other people arrested, including Hussein, whom he did not recognize from the severe beatings. "About 40 minutes later they brought Umar. He was also in a very bad condition. We spent the night in that toilet. The next day they brought us some bread and a cup of coffee."

Then Ahmed was taken back to the hangar. “They wrapped my face and head in bandages. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, and I couldn’t speak. They put a knife to my throat and told the interpreter to tell me that this was my last chance. If I didn’t tell them the truth, they would cut off my head. I told them that I had told them everything.”

After this threat, the mercenaries removed his bandage and threw him into a kitchen at the base, where he spent the night with two other men: a Tuareg who had been captured while guarding livestock and an Arab who said he was looking for camels.

In Mali, the Tuareg and Arab communities are often viewed with suspicion, especially since the Tuareg uprising a few years ago, which was appropriated by jihadist groups that now fight under the name JNIM, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda.

The next day, Ahmed was taken back to the hangar. “They brought the two men, the Tuareg and the Arab, and they cut off their heads in front of me,” he says. Shocked and with his voice trembling, Ahmed recalls what happened next: “They brought the body of one close to me so I could smell the fresh blood and they said, ‘If you don’t tell us where the shop owner is, this will happen to you too.’”

Ahmed said his life was only saved after a Wagner commander called a Malian army officer, who assured him that the shop owner had no connection to the jihadists.

According to Ahmed, the commander then returned to the base to release him, another shop owner, and Umar.

"I stayed there for 15 days. Then I decided to leave for Mauritania with my wife and children," Ahmed said.

The BBC has asked the Russian and Malian Defense Ministries for comment, but they have not responded.

In a report published in August, The Sentry, a group co-founded by actor George Clooney and former US official John Prendergast, said Wagner fighters have not only committed abuses against civilians but have also created chaos and fear within the Malian army, forcing commanders to silence.

The report quoted a Malian official as saying that Wagner operatives were "worse than the French. They think my people are stupider than them. We have gone from the frying pan to the fire."

Trauma from Wagner's crimes

Although the security situation had deteriorated, Wagner declared his mission “complete” and announced his departure from Mali in June of this year. Analysts say most of his fighters have been incorporated into the Africa Corps.

The Timbuktu Institute in Senegal estimates that 70–80% of Africa Corps fighters were previously part of Wagner.

"In reality, 'Africa Corps' inherits Wagner's history of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings and acts of torture," a report published in July said.

However, the organization that monitors violence, Acled, says that initial data shows that the behavior of the "Africa Corps" is "less predatory" compared to that of Wagner.

"The number of cases of deliberate killings of civilians or mass atrocities has dropped significantly," Acled's West Africa analyst, Heni Nsaibia, told the BBC.

According to the UN refugee agency, the conflict has forced almost 50.000 people to flee to the M'berra refugee camp in Mauritania.

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Among them is Bintu, who told the BBC that she fled her village with her five children last year after her husband's bullet-riddled body was found dumped in a river. Villagers told her that he had been shot several times while riding a horse.

“Who will take care of my children? Who will take care of me?” she asked, as she cleared a small patch of land outside her home in the camp.

"When I hear the name Wagner, I get traumatized. I feel scared. I hate this word because they have only brought me pain."

Dressed in dark blue clothes and a white turban, another refugee, Youssouf, was sitting under a shelter when the BBC met him. His eyes showed the trauma of what he had been through.

He remembers being herding cattle near the Mauritanian border with some friends. They stopped at a well to get fresh water when they saw a cloud of dust on the horizon.

Youssouf says a car approached quickly and was full of Wagner fighters, who started beating him for no reason - something many other refugees also told the BBC.

He remembers that one of Wagner's fighters grabbed him and threatened to throw him into the well, but another intervened and stopped him.

Then, he and his friends were forced into different cars, each with three Wagner operatives.

"While they were taking us, they were beating me all the time - kicking me, pressing my face and head with boots, and hitting me in the chest. I don't know what happened to our cattle," he said.

Together with his comrades, he was sent to a military camp north of the city of Léré, where he says they were tortured.

"A man came with a metal rod. He hit us so hard that I felt like I was dying. They tied our hands so we couldn't move, and they hit us hard on the thighs and legs to stop us from running away."

Youssouf said they then dragged him into an office, where the beatings continued until he lost consciousness.

He added that when he woke up, he found his hands tied to the hands of one of his friends, who were not moving.

"Then they brought a motorbike close to my face, started the engine and blew smoke into my nose to wake me up completely. They did the same to my friend, but he didn't respond. That's when they realized he was dead."

Youssouf said he did not know what happened to his friend's body, but he and his other friends were released, without any explanation.

Ahmed, a former shop owner, said that before experiencing the torture himself, he had seen Wagner commit atrocities on a large scale, once placing the entire town of Nampala and surrounding villages under siege.

He said he was among residents who were forced to gather on a football field, where mercenaries were trying to find the person who, according to them, was using a satellite phone.

"They called him Sikou Cissey. He was just a random man with a traditional hat. They took off his clothes and filled a barrel with water, held him by the feet and submerged his head until he couldn't breathe," Ahmed said.

He added that with Malian soldiers watching from afar, Wagner's fighters then brought shovels and blades to scare people, making them think they would dig their own graves if they did not find the person they said was using the satellite phone.

Ahmed said that after a hot day in the sun, the residents were released - except for one who was taken by mercenaries and whose fate he knows nothing about.

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Ahmed said he wants Wagner fighters to be tried and held accountable for their atrocities.

"The memories still haunt me. They give me nightmares," he said, sitting in black clothing in the camp, unsure if he will ever return to his normal life as a shop owner.