(Nairobi) – Mali’s armed forces and the allied Russia-controlled Africa Corps have committed new atrocities against civilians in central Mali during renewed fighting, Human Rights Watch said today.
On September 16, 2026, an apparent military drone strike in Guélédié village, Mopti region, killed eight civilians and injured at least six others. Between May and August, Malian and Africa Corps forces held numerous detainees inhumanely in a metal container at an army base in Sévaré town, Mopti region, where many were tortured, including with severe beatings, electric shock, and waterboarding.
“Civilians are bearing the brunt of the Mali junta’s failure to rein in its abusive forces and allies,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Recent atrocities implicate the Malian army as well as Russia-controlled Africa Corps, for which Russian officials should also be held accountable.”
The Malian army’s offensive followed coordinated attacks across Mali by the Al Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, JNIM) and the Azawad Liberation Front (Front de Libération de l’Azawad, FLA) in late April. Malian forces and the allied Africa Corps killed civilians, including many children, and destroyed civilian property and health facilities in airstrikes and other attacks.
Human Rights Watch remotely interviewed fifteen people between August and September, including three witnesses in Guélédié, four former detainees at the Sévaré military base, and eight members of nongovernmental organizations. Human Rights Watch sent letters to the Malian and Russian defense ministers in early October but received no responses.
Guélédié
On September 16 at about 10 a.m., an apparent military drone delivered a munition on civilians on the outskirts of Guélédié village, killing eight men, ages 25 to 40, and injuring six others. The villagers had gathered around a tree, where a man was providing paid internet access via Starlink. Residents said JNIM fighters often used this service to support operations.
Witnesses said a drone flew over the village for about one hour before delivering its munition, suggesting that the area was being surveilled. “The drone passed over the village at about 9 a.m. and came back at least four times,” said a 40-year-old man. “It was white and had long, thin, straight wings. It would spin around, disappear, and come back again.” This description is broadly consistent with larger drones the Malian government is known to use.
Witnesses said that JNIM has a base in Guélédié and over 100 JNIM fighters were present in the village at the time of the strike, although no JNIM fighters were among the casualties. They also said JNIM fighters alerted the local population via WhatsApp about the possibility of a drone strike at the Starlink location, before leaving the area along with many civilians. Witnesses said that only 14 civilians had remained at the site, continuing to use the connection, when the drone delivered its munition.
“The explosion was deafening, really strong,” said a 30-year-old villager. “I saw very thick black smoke rising from the Starlink connection area.”
A 52-year-old health worker said he went to the scene about an hour later and found six men dead and seven injured “with their bodies burned,” one of whom died there. He said he called the Ténenkou military base commander and that he would take the injured to the Ténenkou Referral Health Center there. “But he did not only categorically refuse our evacuating them,” the health worker said. “But he also warned me not to provide them with any support. For him, they were JNIM fighters and he told me that the drone could not have targeted civilians.”
The injured were eventually evacuated. In a September 24 statement, Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) said its staff at the health center treated four “seriously injured” people with “burns over their entire bodies,” and one “died shortly after arrival.”
Human Rights Watch verified a video shared by witnesses of the aftermath of the strike and geolocated it to an area about 600 meters northeast of the village center. It shows the bodies of three men, two under a burned and broken tree and one in a nearby pond. Two burned motorcycles and a destroyed solar panel are also visible.
In a September 17 statement, the armed forces chief of staff said that on September 16, military units “spotted terrorist elements concealed under vegetation northeast of Guélédié” with “war equipment and satellite communication devices,” after which they “neutralized” them and destroyed their equipment.
Mali’s junta has increasingly used airstrikes against armed groups. Human Rights Watch, other human rights groups, and severalmedia and investigative organizations have documented airstrikes that killed civilians.
Sévaré
The Malian military and the Africa Corps have taken hundreds of civilians into custody during counterinsurgency operations across Mali and unlawfully detained many in military bases. Human Rights Watch, other human rights groups, and the media have documented torture at several bases.
On May 7, soldiers and Africa Corps fighters apprehended a 30-year-old civilian at his home in Guirowel, a village in a JNIM-controlled area in Mopti region. On July 4, they arrested three Quranic students, ages 32, 37, and 40, in Thy village, Mopti region, following a JNIM attack on a military position there.
The four men later said the forces took them to the Hamadoun Bocary Barry army base in Sévaré, holding them incommunicado in a shipping container about 20 meters long with no windows, toilet, or washing facilities, in extreme heat without ventilation, alongside dozens of other detainees. The men said they received a small amount of poor-quality food once a day, were denied necessary medical care, and were verbally abused.
“We got a small piece of bread and sometimes beans and half a bottle of water once a day,” said the 32-year-old man. “The heat was unbearable. On the first day, we were 27, but over the days we reached more than 70 people. We relieved ourselves in a bucket, it was always full and spilling onto the floor. They didn’t empty it.”
The men said they identified Malian soldiers by their uniforms and languages, including French, Bambara, and Fulfulde. They said Africa Corps fighters had “light skin” and spoke a foreign language they did not understand.
Three of the men said Malian soldiers and Africa Corps fighters repeatedly tortured them in a room in a building near the base entrance, alongside Sévaré’s main road, so they could hear traffic sounds. The room had a metal bed, a barrel filled with water, a table, and electric wires on the floor, where the men said they were tortured and interrogated to confess to their alleged association with JNIM.
The man from Guirowel said Malian and Africa Corps personnel tortured him twice for about two hours each. “I almost lost my life when two Russian soldiers drowned me in a barrel of water,” he said. “Every time I lost consciousness, I was resuscitated with an electric shock and drowned again. “They burned my buttocks with hot plastic, and they lit a cloth on my back. They forced me to give information about JNIM, and to admit I was a fighter.”
The 37-year-old man said a Malian soldier tied him to a bed and demanded: “Tell us everything or we’ll kill you.” Then “the blows started raining down on my buttocks and back. ‘Talk!’ they said to me. [A] soldier choked my neck and banged my head against the bed. I don't remember anything after that.”
The 40-year-old man said soldiers tied his feet to a bed and threatened to kill him if he withheld information about JNIM fighters. “I was hit on my buttocks, fire [put] on my back,” he said. “A soldier held my penis and put electricity on it,” while another “poured water on my back and hit me.”
The men said several detainees died in the container following torture. “When a prisoner was about to die, we would bang on the door to alert the guards,” said the 40-year-old man. “They told us to inform them only when a person died. They had no mercy. Eight people died during my detention.”
The military released the three men from Thy on July 20 and the man from Guirowel on August 6. Relatives reportedly paid the military 1.8 million CFA francs (about US$3,000) for the three Thy men and 1 million CFA (about $1,800) for the Guirowel man to secure their release.
All parties to Mali’s armed conflict are bound by international humanitarian law, notably Common Article 3 and Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 as well as customary laws of war. Parties must take all feasible precautions before an attack, including verifying that the target is a military objective. Attacks with no military objective or that do not distinguish between civilians and military personnel are unlawfully indiscriminate.
Anyone deprived of their liberty must be treated humanely in all circumstances and protected against murder, torture, and cruel, humiliating, and degrading treatment. Denying medical care to the wounded or detainees can be a war crime. Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent or as a matter of command responsibility may be prosecuted for war crimes.
In March, the United Nations Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of the independent expert on Mali to assess the human rights situation and assist national authorities in promoting human rights and the rule of law.
“These recent abuses should serve as a stark reminder that concerned governments and international institutions should press the Malian authorities to conduct credible investigations into military abuses and bring those responsible to justice,” Allegrozzi said. “The UN Human Rights Council should increase its scrutiny of the situation in Mali and take steps to prevent further abuses."