Five days of horror and massacres: this is what the inhabitants of Moura, in central Mali, describe. The Malian army claims to have carried out an anti-terrorist action there from March 27 to 31 and claims the death of more than 200 jihadists. However, the inhabitants of this town and several NGOs ensure that the majority of the victims are civilians. franceinfo met two survivors who took refuge in Bamako.
>> Mali: what happened in Moura, where hundreds of people were killed by the Malian army and Russian mercenaries?
Ali* remembers the arrival of the helicopters, as he was returning from the bush. “We were taken to the side of the road. For five days, without sleep, we were given very little water.” On the screen of his phone, the 19-year-old man points to the place of his ordeal. A few hundred meters from his house, he saw the men executed one by one. “All those who were afraid, they put them aside and killed them. They said that those who were afraid of the soldiers must have been terrorists.”
In Mali, survivors of the Moura massacre testify at the microphone of Manon Laplace for franceinfo
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Ali thus saw members of his family die before his eyes. “I saw four of my wife’s uncles shot. A lot of carnies who came every Sunday were also killed.” There have been “too many deaths” to keep an accurate count, he said, staring into space. He claims to have buried a hundred. “We put 50 bodies in one pit, 60 in another.”
“We put them in mats and carried them. It was awful, some of their heads were in pieces. It was very hard.”
Ali, resident of Moura (Mali)at franceinfo
Adama* also remembers the helicopters, the shootings and the summary executions. “First, there were two helicopters. They were carrying only white people. They were the ones who did the most damage…”, breathes this man. If the survivors do not refer to the Russian paramilitary group Wagner by name, according to several witnesses, these white soldiers did not speak French. For them, it was probably Russian mercenaries.
This element is accredited by “several safe sources” with the NGO Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The Malian authorities, they still refute the presence of Russian mercenaries and speak of instructors. The military justice nevertheless opened an investigation into the subject on April 7.
*Names have been changed.