Women fleeing Mali’s conflict say they were sexually abused, but the silence hides much more

DAUNKARA, Mauritania (AP) — The girl lies in a makeshift health clinic, her eyes glazed and her mouth open, her lips fluttering. His chest barely moved. Beads of feverish sweat dripped down his forehead as medical personnel rushed around him to attach an IV drip.

It was the last moment to save her life, said Bethsabi Joman Elije, the women’s health manager who led the clinic’s efforts as the heart monitor beeped rapidly. The girl contracted the infection after being sexually assaulted, Elidze said, and was in shock for several days, untreated.

Her family said the 14-year-old was raped by Russian fighters who stormed their tent in Mali two weeks ago. The Russians were members of the Africa Corps, a new military unit under Russia’s Defense Ministry that replaced the Wagner mercenary group six months earlier.

Men, women and children have been sexually abused by all sides in Mali’s decade-long conflict, the United Nations and aid workers say, with reports of gang rape and sexual slavery. But the real toll is hidden by the veil of shame that makes it difficult for women in conservative, patriarchal societies to seek help.

The silence surrounding the death of a nearly 14-year-old girl also hurts efforts to hold the perpetrators accountable.

The AP learned about the alleged rape and four other alleged cases of sexual violence blamed on Afrika Korps fighters, described by Malians as “white men,” while interviewing dozens of refugees at the border about beheadings and abductions.

Other fighters in Mali have been accused of sexual abuse. The head of a women’s health clinic in the Mopti region told the AP that it has treated 28 women in the past six months who said they were attacked by militants from JNIM, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, Mali’s most powerful armed group.

The silence among Malian refugees has been broken.

In eastern Congo, which has faced decades of violence from dozens of armed groups, “we don’t have to look for people,” said Mirzam Molenaar, a border medical team leader for Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, who was deployed there last year. Women “came in great numbers.”

It’s different here, she said: “People go through these things and they live with it, and it shows up in post-traumatic stress.”

Speechless after the attack

The aunt of the 14-year-old girl said Afrika Korps fighters took everyone out at gunpoint. They could not understand what the family wanted. After the girl’s uncle was tied up and beheaded, the men guarded them.

Two men then took the 14-year-old girl to a tent and tried to protect themselves and raped her. The family waited outside, unable to move.

“We were so scared we couldn’t even scream anymore,” the aunt recalled, as her mother wept silently by her side. She, like the other women, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, and the AP does not name rape victims unless they agree to be named.

After half an hour, the girl came out looking scared. Then she saw her uncle’s dead body and screamed. She fainted. When she woke up, she had the eyes of someone “who was no longer there,” the aunt said.

The next morning, JNIM militants came and ordered the family to leave. They piled into donkey carts and headed for the border. At any sound, they hid in the bushes, holding their breath.

During the three-day journey, the girl’s condition worsened. When they arrived in Mauritania, he collapsed.

AP found him lying on the ground in a local family’s yard. His family said that they could not take him to the clinic due to lack of money.

“How can you get someone to the doctor if you don’t have anything?” The girl’s grandmother cried. AP took the family to a free clinic run by MSF. The doctor said that there were signs of rape on the girl.

The clinic had been operating for just a month and had seen three survivors of sexual violence, manager Elidze said.

“We are sure there are many more cases like this,” she said. “But so far, very few patients come forward for treatment because it’s still a taboo subject here. It really takes time and patience for these women to open up and trust someone so they can get care. They only come when things are already complicated, like we saw today.”

As Elije tries to save the girl’s life, he asks the family to explain the incident. She does not speak Arabic and asks a local nurse to find out how many men attacked her. But the nurse was too embarrassed to ask.

The scratch marks are part of the story he can’t tell

Thousands of new refugees from Mali, many of them women and children, have settled in shelters made of cloth and branches inside Mauritania in recent weeks. As the nearby refugee camp fills up, efforts to treat and report sexual abuse are complicated.

Two women who had just arrived carefully pulled the AP reporters aside, covering their faces with scarves. They said they came after armed white men came to the village a week ago.

“They took everything from us. They burned our house. They killed our husbands,” said one. “But they didn’t just do that, they tried to rape us.”

The men entered the house where she was alone and stripped her of her clothes, she said, adding that she saved herself “by the grace of Allah”.

As she spoke, the second woman began to cry and tremble. He had scratch marks on his neck. He was not able to tell his story.

“We are still afraid of what we went through,” she said.

Separately, a third woman said what white men did to her in Mali last month when she was home alone “remains between God and me.”

A fourth said she saw several armed white men dragging her 18-year-old daughter into the house. He ran away and never saw his daughter again.

The women rejected suggestions that they talk to aid workers, some of whom are local. They said that they are not ready to talk about this matter with others.

Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to questions, but an information agency called the AP’s investigation into Africa Corps fake news is part of the US State Department’s “Kremlin’s disinformation campaign.”

Wagner has a legacy of sexual abuse

Wagner was accused of rape and other sexual abuse before he was transferred to the Afrika Korps.

One refugee told the AP that she witnessed a gang rape in her village in March 2024.

“The Wagner group doused seven people in front of us with gasoline and burned them alive.” she said. They then rounded up the women and raped them, she said, along with her 70-year-old mother.

She said, ‘My mother could not live after she was raped. A month later, the mother died.

In one of the worst cases of sexual abuse in Africa involving Russian fighters, the United Nations said in a 2023 report that at least 58 women and girls were raped or sexually assaulted in an attack on the village of Moura by Malian forces and other witnesses described as “armed white men.”

In response, Mali’s government expelled the UN peacekeeping mission. Since then, collecting accurate data on the ground about conflict-related sexual violence has been nearly impossible.

The AP interviewed five women from Maura, who now live in displaced persons’ camps. They said that several men blindfolded them and raped them for hours.

Three of the women said they did not talk about it with anyone other than aid workers. The other two dared to tell their husbands months later.

“I kept quiet with my family for fear of rejection or being looked at differently. It’s a shame,” said one.

A 14-year-old whose family fled to Mauritania is recovering. She said she could not remember anything after the attack. Her family and MSF said she was talking to a psychiatrist – one of six working in the country.

Aid workers worry about others who never say anything.

“It seems that years of conflict are getting worse and worse. Human life, whether it’s men, women or children, is getting less attention,” said Molenaar of MSF, breaking into tears. “This is a fight.”

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