Malian soldiers have carried out multiple summary executions since the start of a French-backed offensive against Islamist extremists, a rights group charged here.
The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) called for the establishment of an independent commission to investigate reports that could undermine France’s efforts to drum up support for an intervention it has justified on moral grounds.
In a statement, the FIDH said it had established that a series of summary executions had taken place since France launched its campaign on January 11, particularly in the towns of Sevare and Mopti in central Mali, and Nioro, in the west of the country close to the border with Mauritania.
In Sevare, at least 11 people were executed in a military camp near the bus station and the town’s hospital, FIDH said, citing evidence gathered by local researchers.
Credible reports also pointed to around 20 other people having been executed in the same area with the bodies having been dumped in wells or otherwise disposed of, the organisation said.
In Nioro, two Malian Tuaregs were executed by Malian soldiers, according to the FIDH. A spokeswoman said the FIDH was still collating compelling evidence of executions in the garrison town of Mopti.
“These abuses blemish the legitimacy of the operation to restore the territorial integrity (of Mali) and have to be investigated by the national authorities and, if necessary, the International Criminal Court (ICC),” FIDH president Sidiki Kaba said.
The ICC opened an inquiry into suspected war crimes in Mali on January 16 but its focus, until now, was to be abuses carried out in the north of the country since Islamists and Tuareg rebels seized control there last April.
FIDH’s reporting of executions in Sevare follows an unconfirmed report by the French weekly magazine L’Express of a mass execution of Islamist fighters who were detained there after fleeing French airstrikes around the town of Konna in the opening days of the conflict.
Islamist groups allied to Tuareg rebels last year inflicted a string of defeats on the Malian army on their way to taking control of the north of the country.
Now, fears of large-scale reprisals for that humiliation are being taken seriously by French authorities.