Takeaways from AP’s investigation into Russia’s Africa Corps in Mali

DAKAR. Senegal (AP) — Dozens of people who have fled Mali tell The Associated Press that a new Russian military unit that replaced the Wagner mercenary group this year is carrying out abuses, including rapes and beheadings, as it teams up with Mali’s military to hunt down extremists.

The refugees said the Africa Corps, which reports to Russia’s Defense Ministry, is using the same tactics as Wagner. Their accounts, collected during rare access to the Mauritanian border, have not been reported by international media until now.

West Africa’s vast Sahel region has become the deadliest place in the world for extremism. The military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in recent years have turned from Western allies to Russia for help combating the fighters affiliated with al-Qaida or the Islamic State group.

The Africa Corps replaced Wagner six months ago. That sparked hope for less brutality among weary civilians who the United Nations says have been abused by all sides. But refugees described a new reign of terror by the “white men” in the vast and largely lawless territory. The AP spoke to 34 refugees. Most spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Here are takeaways from the AP investigation.

A ‘scorched-earth policy’

Two refugees showed videos of villages they said were burned by Africa Corps. Two others said they found bodies of loved ones with liver and kidneys missing. Previous AP reporting has tracked social media channels, likely administered by Wagner members, that shared images of men in military uniform butchering corpses of what appear to be Malian civilians, hacking out organs and posing with severed limbs.

“It’s a scorched-earth policy,” said a Malian village chief who fled to Mauritania last month for the second time. “The soldiers speak to no one. Anyone they see, they shoot. No questions, no warning. People don’t even know why they are being killed.”

He added: “There is no difference between Wagner and Africa Corps.”

Malian authorities never publicly acknowledged Wagner’s presence, and have not acknowledged Africa Corps. But Russian state media in recent weeks have published reports from Mali praising Africa Corps for defending the country from “terrorists,” and Russia’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the unit is active “at the request of the Malian authorities,” providing ground escorts, search-and-rescue operations and other work.

Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to AP questions.

Questions around Africa Corps

Reported abuses against civilians intensified when Wagner teamed up with the underfunded Malian army in 2021. According to private security analysts, Mali paid Russia about $10 million a month for Wagner’s assistance. While the group was never officially under the Kremlin’s command, it had close ties to Russia’s intelligence and military.

Moscow began developing the Africa Corps as a rival to Wagner after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in 2023 following his brief armed rebellion in Russia that challenged the rule of President Vladimir Putin.

It is unclear whether Mali’s agreement remains the same for Africa Corps. Much is unknown about the unit’s 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 in a recent report said the unit recruits from Russia, Belarus and African states.

Civilians are ‘between a rock and a hard place’

The hunt by Africa Corps and Malian forces for militants intensified in September, when JNIM fighters imposed an unprecedented blockade on fuel into Mali from neighboring countries.

Experts say it’s impossible to know how many people are being killed and assaulted in Mali, especially in remote areas, while journalists and aid workers have limited access to the country.

“There is a lot of people raped, attacked, killed. Families are separated, there is no doubt about that,” said Sukru Cansizoglu, the representative in Mauritania for the U.N. refugee agency. But “it is sometimes difficult to really pinpoint who are the perpetrators.”

Civilians, under pressure from both the militants and the Africa Corps and Malian fighters, are “between a rock and a hard place,” said Heni Nsaibia from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

As one refugee put it: “If you don’t tell the army you saw jihadists, the army will kill you. But if you tell them, the jihadists will find you and kill you.”

Direct accountability of the Russian state

Legal experts said the shift from Wagner to Africa Corps makes the Russian government directly accountable for its military unit’s actions.

“Despite the rebranding, there is striking continuity in personnel, commanders, tactics and even insignia between Wagner and Africa Corps,” said Lindsay Freeman, senior director of international accountability at the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Human Rights Center, which has monitored the conflict in Mali.

Because Africa Corps is embedded in Russia’s Ministry of Defense, it can be treated as an organ of the Russian state under international law, Freeman said. “That means any war crimes committed by Africa Corps in Mali are, in principle, attributable to the Russian government under the rules on state responsibility.”