“It’s a scorched earth policy,” said a fleeing village chief. ‘The soldiers don’t talk to anyone. They shoot everyone they see. No questions, no warning. People don’t even know why they’re being killed.’ Other refugees showed AP videos of their villages being burned by the “white men” and recalled finding the bodies of their loved ones without livers and kidneys.
When the Afrika Korps replaced Wagner, the Malians hoped for a reprieve from the abuse. Instead, the handover signaled a “new reign of terror” in the largely lawless region, which was directly linked to the Kremlin.
“They are the same men, paid by the government, and they continue the massacres,” the village chief said. “There is no difference between Wagner and the Afrika Korps.”
Experts told AP it was impossible to know how many people are being killed and attacked in Mali, especially in remote areas. “Many people have been raped, attacked and murdered,” said Sukru Cansizoglu, Mauritania’s representative for the United Nations refugee agency. “[But] It is sometimes difficult to really determine who the perpetrators are.”
It follows recent praise in Russian state media for the Afrika Korps for defending Mali against “terrorists” and confirmation from the Russian Foreign Ministry that the unit was deployed “at the request of the Malian authorities.”
Malian authorities have never publicly acknowledged the presence of either Russian paramilitary group, but the two countries have consolidated their close ties in recent months, including through a series of agreements aimed at strengthening economic ties.
The Malian military was thought to be significantly underfunded in 2021, with private security analysts estimating that Russia was receiving around $10 million (£7.5 million) a month for providing military aid.
Little is known about the details of the Mali-Russia agreement for the Afrika Korps, including the number of soldiers, although estimates hover around 2,000. Moscow has reportedly started developing the new paramilitary force to replace Wagner after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash in 2023 following his brief 2023 uprising against Putin.
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