Following an allegation that Malian military and their allies slaughtered hundreds of people last year, Mali’s ruling junta has ordered prosecutors to investigate the UN’s peacekeeping force for “espionage.”
The public prosecutor’s office stated in a statement posted on social media on Tuesday that a team specializing in “terrorism and transnational crime” had received a complaint from the state regarding members of the MINUSMA mission.
The human rights section of MINUSMA investigated occurrences that occurred in the central town of Moura between May 27 and 31, 2022.
According to a report released last month by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Malian army and “foreign” fighters murdered at least 500 individuals.
According to the junta’s allegation, MINUSMA troops are “co-authors or accomplices in crimes such as espionage, harming the morale of the army or air force, use of false documents, and harming external state security,” according to a statement dated Monday.
The figures given by the OHCHR represent the biggest atrocity committed in Mali since a terrorist insurgency erupted in 2012.
It was also the most damaging document yet against Mali’s military and its backers.
The foreigners’ nationalities were not clearly stated in the article, but Mali has brought in Russian paramilitaries that Western governments and others claim are Wagner mercenaries.
On May 14, the junta slammed the report as “fictitious” and claimed that the only people killed were “terrorist fighters,” a phrase commonly used to characterize terrorists.
It further claimed that the UN utilized satellites to acquire information without obtaining permission from the government, claiming that this amounted to espionage and should be investigated.
The claim hastens a downward spiral between the junta and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, or MINUSMA.
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Mali demanded on Friday that the UN Security Council withdraw the 15,000 peacekeepers immediately, blaming the 10-year-old operation for “failure” to fulfill security problems. The mandate of MINUSMA expires on June 30.
The military has dominated the landlocked state since 2020, when its elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, was deposed by army officers enraged by his inability to quell the Islamist insurrection.
After the junta formed an alliance with the Kremlin, France, the country’s longstanding friend, withdrew its soldiers after Russian personnel arrived.
