A joint investigation conducted by the newspaper “Le Monde”, “Forbedden Stories” and media partners reveal the serious violations they committed Wagner Group Russian against civilians before leaving Mali, and these violations include arbitrary arrests, secret detention and torture, which in some cases led to death.
And it confirms that civilians, often from the Volan or Tuareg, which are societies more linked to others with jihadists or separatist fighters, were arrested without a judicial memorandum, and then were tortured by Wagner in the financial military camps.
The investigation reviews horrific certificates of victims such as “Nomi”, a merchant from the Fulani tribe in his fifties, who was arrested in his village on July 31, 2024, and he was severely tortured, including suffocation with water and burning, and witnessed 5 men who were slaughtered in front of him.
He was released after 4 days, but he is still suffering from a deep shock, and “Nomi” is now living as a refugee in Mauritania, like tens of thousands of financial people who fled violence.
The investigation reveals the existence of at least 6 bases of the financial army (Bavo, Kidal, Nampala, Nevonki, Seifari, and Susara) where Wagner has detained civilians illegally since early 2022. Some of these rules were previously camps for the United Nations Mission in Mali, and the financial army and Vagner seized it after withdrawing United Nations In 2023, there is information that Wagner uses hideouts and old ammunition depots to detain and interrogate civilians.
The investigation describes repeated patterns of torture, including beating with sticks, electrical cables, imaginary dumping, burning and deprivation of food and water, and it is mentioned that the detainees were beating “as it hit dogs”, and music was occupied loudly to hide the cries of the detainees.
It is highlighted that Wagner, during its period in Mali (December 2021-June 2025), has committed countless atrocities, including bullets, burning and beheading, and is estimated that hundreds of finers, especially from the Volan and Tuareg societies, were killed by Wagner’s elements.
He explains that Wagner was conducting its operations independence, and arrested people in the field without interference from the financial armed forces, as it reveals that these Russian mercenaries blackmail civilians and confiscating money and jewelry, and detaining some of them in exchange for a ransom sometimes up to 5 million African francs (about 7600 euros), and sometimes they liquidate the rich to steal their property directly.
The investigation will be concluded with other certificates of victims such as “Wangrin” and “Ismail”, who were subjected to brutal torture and detention in inhumane circumstances. It also indicates shooting incidents on prisoners after their release, indicating that Wagner was using them as a “human hunting” or for shooting training.
She drew up Lomond In the latest investigation, the Russian and Russian authorities did not respond to requests to comment on the findings of the newspaper and its partners, and the light violations of the human rights committed by the Wagner Group in Mali, and led to a collective displacement of the population and the escalation of violence in the country.