Reports of forced disappearances and summary executions are escalating against soldiers from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, who are actively engaged in counter-jihadist operations across the Sahel. These grave accusations have prompted significant concern from the United Nations.
During a Security Council video conference focused on the Sahel, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peace Operations, made a strong plea on Friday. He urged the G5 Sahel Joint Force and its member nations to “spare no effort” in upholding human rights.
For several months, this concern has been voiced with increasing urgency, coinciding with ongoing denunciations of jihadist atrocities and inter-communal violence in the region.
In early April, the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) highlighted a “multiplication” of alleged misconduct by national armies.
Between January and March, the UN documented 101 extrajudicial killings attributed to the Malian army, along with approximately thirty others carried out by the Nigerien army on Malian soil. Guillaume Ngefa, director of MINUSMA’s human rights division, confirmed that “These figures, the names and the circumstances have been documented.”
Mid-May saw the deaths of twelve individuals, arrested on suspicion of complicity with jihadists, in gendarmerie cells in Burkina Faso. Relatives and NGOs assert these were civilians who were summarily executed. Judicial investigations have been promised.
– “very serious allegations” –
In Niger, a list of disappeared persons circulated in April suggested that 102 individuals may have been killed by the army in the Tillabéri region, located in the west of the country. While the Ministry of Defense pledged an inquiry, it also commended the “professionalism” of its troops.
Consistently, human rights organizations have released lists of names and photographs, lamenting the disappearance of these individuals following military operations. A significant number of those who vanished are Fulani, who are often unfairly linked to jihadist groups.
An anonymous official from the Malian Fulani association Tabital Pulaaku expressed frustration, stating, “We can produce reports, denounce that so many Fulani have been killed and thrown into a well, or show the world a mass grave, but nothing is done afterwards.”
Abou Sow, president of Tabital Pulaaku, told the press, “It is undeniable that some Fulani have taken the path of jihadism, but it is naive to reduce jihadism to a single ethnicity.”
Sahelian governments have consistently stood by their armies, which, despite often being underequipped and undertrained, bear a heavy cost in the ongoing fight against jihadism.
Addressing the Security Council on behalf of the G5 Sahel (comprising Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali), Mauritanian Foreign Minister Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed declared that “achieving full capacity for the Joint Force meant its ability to fully grasp the human rights dimension.”
He affirmed that Mauritania “is undertaking actions to ensure respect for the law.” Abdou Abarry, Niger’s ambassador and a non-permanent member of the Council, echoed this sentiment, stating, “We fully adhere to human rights,” as nations like Belgium voiced concerns over “very serious allegations.”
– “related objective” –
In a statement released Friday after its meeting, the Security Council acknowledged “the measures announced by several Sahel governments in response to these allegations of human rights violations, and encouraged their finalization.”
These accusations against national armies emerge at a critical juncture for the Sahel region.
Firstly, the UN faces skepticism from certain Security Council members regarding the scale of its mission in Mali, which numbered 13,000 personnel in mid-June.
Separately, France re-evaluated its commitment in the Sahel following the deaths of 13 French soldiers in November.
Despite the presence of French forces, MINUSMA (whose mandate is due for renewal), and the G5 Sahel joint force established in 2017, the surge of violence has not been contained, leading to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands displaced since 2012.
Ibrahim Maïga, from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Bamako, noted that “the protection of civilians is only a related objective” to the “number one priority of military forces, which is to neutralize” jihadists.
When questioned by AFP in May about the alleged abuses by national armies, General Pascal Facon, commander of the French anti-jihadist force, described them as “intolerable” and potentially “posing a problem in terms of the credibility of the forces.”
