To falsely accuse France’s departing soldiers of leaving behind mass graves, Russian mercenaries allegedly buried remains near a Malian military installation.
The Gossi base in northern Mali was reportedly where the French military captured footage of what seemed to be white troops concealing corpses with sand.
Dia Diarra, a self-described “former soldier” who identifies himself as a “Malian patriot,” tweeted pixelated photographs of sand-covered bodies and accused France of crimes on Twitter on Thursday.
… This is what the French left behind in Gossi when they departed the base The account said, “We can’t stay quiet!”
This video was labelled a “information offensive” by France’s military staff, who stated that the account was “quite certainly a false account made by Wagner,” the Russian mercenary company that came in Mali late last year to help local forces struggling against the Islamic State.
A “direct relationship” can be drawn between Wagner’s actions and the ones erroneously ascribed to French troops, according to France’s army, which compares photographs released on Twitter with images obtained by a specific sensor.
Discrediting the [Operation Barkhane] troops is the goal of this manoeuvre.” It seems to be in sync. French troops have been subjected to “several information assaults” during the last few months, the statement claimed.
There are accusations of massive human rights violations in Mali by Wagner mercenaries as Paris wraps down its almost decade-long military mission there.
Joint patrols on Mali’s porous borders and military operations against Islamist extremism in central Mali are currently led by more than 500 Russian forces.
Wagner was charged earlier this month with orchestrating an assault on the central Mali town of Moura, during which more than 300 people were slaughtered, the majority of them were civilians, according to witnesses, community leaders, and human rights organisations.
Dozens of white soldiers that assisted local forces on the operation, according to reports from many sources, were Russian troops.
Only hardcore terrorists were slain and the Russians in Mali are military instructors, the military-dominated administration claims.
France announced its departure from Mali in February, and on Tuesday it formally turned over responsibility of the base of operations in Gossi to the Malian army.
After the withdrawal of 300 French troops from the site, the French general command issued a warning regarding information warfare.
In West Africa, where French troops have been stationed since 2013, anti-French sentiment has intensified. Social media has become a major battleground in the region.
An account network related to the Russian oligarch who owns the Wagner company was shut down by Facebook on the 10th of October, 2019. Eight African nations’ political politics were targeted by the accounts. Second Russian-led network of professional trolls outsourced to Ghanaian and Nigerian operatives will be targeted by Facebook in 2020, according to the social network. The Wagner group and anti-democracy rallies in Mali have lately been organised by pro-Russian Facebook accounts in Mali.
This battle has also led to allegations of violations committed by the Mali military, and UN Secretary General António Guterres recently warned the UN Security Council that counter-terrorism measures in the nation had “disastrous implications for the civilian population.” Guterres.
According to a military spokeswoman, Mali’s army is regulated by human rights and international law and has urged for “caution against libellous allegations.”.
As a result of their coverage of the Moura massacre, authorities in Bamako have shut down many French media outlets.
Regional group ECOWAS has asked Mali’s military leaders to organise free and fair democratic elections within two years, and the military authorities stated Thursday that they will comply with the request.
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