DOUANCARA, Mauritania (AP) — A new Russian military unit replacing the Wagner mercenary group is committing abuses such as rape and beheading as it teams up with Mali’s military to hunt down extremists, dozens of civilians who fled the fighting told The Associated Press.
Afrika Korps is using tactics similar to Wagner’s, refugees said, in accounts not yet reported by international media. Two refugees showed videos of villages burned by “white men”. Two others said they found the bodies of loved ones missing livers and kidneys, abuses the AP has reported surrounding Wagner.
“It’s a scorched earth policy,” said the head of a fled Mali village. “Soldiers don’t talk to anyone. Anyone they see, they shoot. No question, no warning. People don’t know why they are killed.”
West Africa’s vast Sahel region has become the world’s deadliest place for extremism, killing thousands of people. The military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have turned to Russia from Western allies for help fighting militants affiliated with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group.
When the Afrika Korps replaced Wagner six months earlier, weary civilians expected less brutality. The United Nations says there have been abuses by all sides in the conflict.
But refugees described a new reign of terror by the Afrika Korps in a vast and largely lawless region, and legal analysts said Moscow was directly responsible.
The AP gained rare access to the Mauritanian border, where thousands of Malians have fled in recent months as fighting has intensified. It spoke to 34 refugees who described indiscriminate killings, abductions and sexual abuse. Most spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“They are the same people, paid by the government, and the genocide continues. There is no difference between Wagner and the Afrika Korps,” the village chief said.
Malian officials have never publicly acknowledged the presence of Wagner or the Afrika Korps. But Russian state media have published reports from Mali in recent weeks, praising the Africa Corps for defending the country from “terrorists” and Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirming that the unit is active “at the request of the Malian authorities”, providing ground escorts, search and rescue operations and other tasks.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to AP questions.
Locals are called ‘dogs’ in Russian
It was early morning and Maugaloa was brewing sweet black tea when she heard gunshots. Seconds later, two cars pulled up in front of his tent, masked white men shouting in a foreign language.
A shepherd from northern Mali, she has witnessed her share of horrors over the last decade of violence – but she says none have been as brutal as these men.
Armed men have come before, Mogalova said. When they heard that they were coming, the family would often run away. But they were arrested three months ago.
She said the men came with Malian soldiers and captured her 20-year-old son Koubadi. The gardeners asked him if he had seen a terrorist. When he said no, they beat him until he passed out.
The men then cut his throat as the powerless, Mogloa watched.
She said the family fled but were found again by armed men in late October.
This time, they didn’t ask questions. They wore masks and military uniforms. They took everything the family owned, from animals to jewelry.
And they kept repeating one word, “pes” – a derogatory word for dog in Russian.
They dragged Mogloa’s 16-year-old daughter Akhadya away when she tried to protest. Then they saw Fatma, Mogloa’s eldest daughter, and lost interest in the arena.
They took Fatima to their tent. Without thinking, Maugloa grabbed Akhadya’s hand and started running, leaving Fatma behind. They haven’t heard from him since.
“We were so scared,” Mogloa said with a shudder. “We hope he’ll be here at some point.”
Experts say it is impossible to know how many people have been killed and attacked in Mali, especially in remote areas, while journalists and aid workers have increasingly limited access to the country.
“There are a lot of people raped, attacked, killed. Families are separated, there’s no doubt about it,” said Sukru Cancizoglu, Mauritania’s representative for the UN refugee agency. But “sometimes it’s hard to identify who the real culprits are.”
Civilians are “between a rock and a hard place” under pressure from both the Afrika Korps and Malian fighters, said Henny Nasaibia from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, or ACLED.
If people do not comply with JNIM evacuation orders, they will face retaliation, Nasaibia said. But if they escape, Mali’s army and Africa Corps consider them JNIM allies.
Mougaloa’s family experienced this firsthand.
“If you see the army as jihadists, the army will kill you,” she said. “But if you tell them, the jihadists will find you and kill you.”
Questions around the Africa core
Reports of abuses against civilians intensified when Wagner joined the underfunded Malian army in 2021. According to private security analysts, Mali paid Russia $10 million per month for Wagner’s assistance. Although the group was not officially under the command of the Kremlin, it had close ties to Russia’s intelligence and military.
Moscow began developing the Afrika Korps as a rival to Wagner after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash in 2023 following a brief armed uprising in Russia challenging the rule of President Vladimir Putin.
It is unclear whether the terms of Mali’s contract are 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 was recruited from Russia, Belarus and African states.
According to the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, the Africa Corps and the Malian military have stepped up their joint offensive in northern Mali, which has substantial gold reserves.
While civilian deaths blamed on the Russians have fallen this year — 447 so far compared to 911 last year — the numbers may not reflect the full scale, Nsaibia said: “People are too afraid to report, to avoid putting their safety on the line.”
Fewer outsiders are watching. The UN peacekeeping mission withdrew from Mali in 2023 under government pressure. Mali’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court this year has further complicated efforts to track abuses. The ICC is investigating serious crimes committed in Mali since fighting with armed groups began in 2012.
Eduardo González Cueva, the UN’s independent expert on human rights in Mali, told the AP that he had twice this year asked the country’s military authorities for permission to visit and sent them a questionnaire. They did not respond.
Mali’s government considers investigations into alleged abuses “inconvenient and detrimental to the morale of the army,” Cueva said in his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council in March, adding that “serious human rights violations and abuses by all actors are exacerbated by impunity.”
‘Only the name has changed’
When Wagner announced his departure from Mali, some refugees decided to return home. Many find that nothing has changed.
“It was the same thing,” said one Bokar, who spoke resignedly after hanging his youngest son. He said he saw a dead body with missing parts.
He said he counted all the people killed or abducted by Wagner and Mali’s forces in his hometown of Lere before he fled for the first time in 2023. He said the list has reached 214 people.
“Only the name was changed,” he said of the Afrika Korps. “Clothes, vehicles, people remained the same. The ways remained the same and got worse. So we left home again.”
Other refugees described being so scared of the Russians that at any sound like an engine, they would run or climb the nearest tree.
One woman said she was so desperate to escape the Wagner fighters that she once left her 3-month-old baby at home. When he returned hours later, his daughter was lying in front of the house, her tiny hands clenched into fists.
“I was so scared, I forgot I gave birth,” the woman said, holding her daughter.
Legal experts said the transfer from Wagner to the Afrika Korps would make the Russian government directly accountable for the militants’ actions.
“Despite the rebranding, there is considerable continuity in personnel, commanders, tactics and even insignia between Wagner and Africa Corps,” said Lindsey Freeman, senior director of international accountability at the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict in Mali.
Because Africa Corps is directly incorporated into Russia’s defense ministry, 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, attributable to the Russian government under the rules on state responsibility.”
‘Lost the meaning of life’
Fatma said that when Gora came to Kurmare village a month ago, everyone fled except her.
His 18-year-old daughter was injured by the gunshots and fell unconscious. Fatma stayed with him as the men looted the village and shot the fleeing men.
The men went from house to house, took the women’s jewelry and killed the men. When they entered Fatma’s house, they assumed her daughter was dead and left her alone.
Fatma doesn’t want to talk about what the white men did to her.
It “remains between God and me,” she muttered, shuddering.
Hours later, when she left the village, she found her son’s body shot in the shop. Then she met her injured brother. When she left for Mauritania, her daughter, who continued to have seizures, also died.
“Before the conflict began, I had the strength, I had the courage,” Fatma said faintly. Now, “life has lost its meaning.”
His family belongs to the Fulani ethnic group, which Mali’s government accuses of having links to terrorists. Some Fulani, who have long been neglected by the central government, have joined the militancy. Civilians are often targeted by both sides.
But Fatma said that no one in her village belongs to armed groups. “I don’t know what we did to deserve it,” she said.
Now, in Mauritania, the memories haunt him. She has trouble sleeping and breathing, and clutches her chest frequently. She spends time looking at a single picture of her daughter.
“I’m just a person who’s alive and appears to be the person I am – but really, isn’t alive,” she said.
