Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday that airstrikes carried out by Russia’s Africa Corps in central Mali last month killed eight civilians, including three children, describing the attacks as “indiscriminate and unlawful.”
The organization said its investigation concluded that a Sukhoi Su-24 aircraft, identified by two Malian military sources, bombed the village of Kirenia in Mopti Region on 15 June, killing the village chief’s wife, two of his children, another child, and four men at a livestock market.
HRW said it found no evidence that members of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) were among those killed, despite the group’s reported presence in the village for the past six years.
The organization concluded that the strikes did not appear to target a specific military objective and could therefore constitute unlawful indiscriminate attacks under international humanitarian law. It called on the Malian authorities to conduct an independent investigation and hold those responsible accountable.
The Africa Corps, which operates under Russia’s Ministry of Defence and has largely replaced the Wagner Group in Mali, previously released aerial footage on social media claiming it showed a strike against what it described as a gathering of “terrorist groups” in the same area on 15 June.
Human Rights Watch said it geolocated the footage and determined that it had been filmed in the village of Kirenia.
Neither the Malian authorities nor the Russian Ministry of Defence had commented on the report at the time of publication.
