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Anti-Terror Raids Killing Civilians in West Africa, Amnesty Says

Anti-Terror Raids Killing Civilians in West Africa, Amnesty Says

(Bloomberg) -- More than 142 people are missing and 57 feared killed after troops in Mali and Niger scaled up counter-terrorism operations in recent months, Amnesty International said.

The human-rights group documented 199 cases of abuses, arbitrary arrests and forced disappearances by troops in the two countries, as well as neighboring Burkina Faso, in February and March. The security forces were responding to attacks by groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

The report follows allegations of widespread abuse by West African troops against civilians documented by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali. The mission documented 101 extrajudicial killings, 32 cases of enforced disappearances and 32 cases of torture by Malian security forces against civilians in the first quarter this year.

“While arbitrary arrests by security forces sweep up dozens of people at the time, some aren’t seen again, and the true scale of the violations committed by the armies is unknown,” Samira Daoud, Amnesty’s West and Central Africa director, said in a statement.

On Feb. 7, Malian troops descended on the southwestern village of Massabougou, arresting 22 villagers and killing eight others, according to unidentified people interviewed by Amnesty. Two days later, soldiers began another operation in a nearby village, killing the imam and a local leader.

During the same period, at least 100 civilians were “forcibly disappeared” in Niger’s Tillabery region, allegedly in retaliation for some of the deadliest attacks against Nigerien forces that left at least 160 soldiers dead in two raids in December and January this year.

U.S., France

There have been subsequent attacks since then. Forty-three people were killed in multiple raids in central Mali on June 3 and 5, according to local human-rights organization Tabital Pulakuu. The government said Sunday it would investigate whether soldiers were behind the attacks, as Tabital Pulakuu alleged.

Malian Defense Ministry spokesman Boubacar Diallo said any alleged abuses by Malian forces would be investigated by the authorities. “It’s unacceptable if the Malian army commits such acts against the population,” he said by phone from Bamako.

Niger Defense Minister Issoufou Katambe didn’t answer three calls or respond to a text message requesting comment.

Niger is a strategic partner to France and the U.S. in the fight against terrorism and international organized crime. The West African nation, one of the poorest in the world, receives millions of dollars of aid annually from the European Union, the U.S. and Gulf States to fight terrorism and trafficking of illicit goods and people. The U.S. has built a $110-million airbase in the northern city of Agadez, providing intelligence and surveillance support to forces fighting Islamist militants in the region.

France has more than 5,000 troops across the Sahel as part of a counter-terrorism mission -- it first deployed forces in Mali in 2013. After 13 French soldiers were killed on a single mission last year, President Emmanuel Macron threatened to withdraw troops unless West African leaders dealt with anti-French sentiment, while increasing their efforts to stop militants from gaining ground in the region.

Multiple organizations, including the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project -- an organization tracking violent incidents and attacks -- have recorded an increase in abuses by regional West African forces since Macron’s threat.

Since the high-level G5 summit on Jan, 13, 270 civilians have been killed in Mali, 123 in Niger and 213 in Burkina Faso, in attacks attributed to government forces, according to ACLED researcher Heni Nsaiba.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.