DAKAR, SENEGAL – In a public report released Friday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has leveled serious accusations against Russia’s state-controlled Africa Corps, claiming that a corps aircraft carried out an airstrike on a central Malian village last month that left eight civilians dead, among them three children.
According to the investigation compiled by HRW, a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 attack plane dropped two explosive munitions on the village of Kyrnia, located in Mali’s conflict-battered Mopti region, on June 15. The first bomb landed close to the village chief’s residence, killing his wife and three of his children. The second strike hit a small cattle market just a short distance away, killing four adult male civilians. Shockingly, HRW’s investigation found no fatalities among fighters from Jama’a Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic militant group that has held control of Kyrnia for six years.
The Associated Press has not been able to independently confirm the accuracy of HRW’s findings, consistent with standard journalistic practice for on-the-ground conflict reporting in inaccessible regions.
Mali has been trapped in a spiral of violent instability for more than 10 years. The country faces overlapping insurgencies from jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State – including JNIM – alongside a long-running separatist rebellion led by Tuareg groups in the country’s northern territories. Violence has accelerated sharply in recent months, after a joint offensive by JNIM and Tuareg separatist forces carried out the largest coordinated attack across Mali in more than a decade. The assault targeted key sites including Bamako’s international airport, the nearby military garrison town of Kati, and multiple population centers in northern and central Mali.
Those April attacks laid bare critical gaps in the Malian government’s counterinsurgency strategy, which has centered heavily on Russian military support since the country’s military junta cut diplomatic and security ties with former Western ally France. Russian military-linked forces have operated in Mali since late 2021, brought in to assist the military-led government in its fight against militant and separatist factions. Last year, Africa Corps – a unit that falls directly under the command of Russia’s Ministry of Defense – took over Russian military operations in the country, replacing the private mercenary outfit the Wagner Group.
To build its report on the June 15 strike, HRW said it conducted interviews with 19 separate witnesses with direct knowledge of the incident, cross-referenced witness accounts with high-resolution satellite imagery, and reviewed publicly released footage of the strike that was posted online by Africa Corps itself. In that footage, the corps framed the operation as a targeted strike against a gathering of terrorists. HRW’s researchers noted that while roughly 100 JNIM fighters were present in Kyrnia on the day of the strike, the majority of those fighters were gathered in a separate part of the village, far from the two sites hit by munitions. The group concluded that the airstrikes did not appear to target a clear, legitimate military objective, violating international laws of war.
HRW has called on Mali’s military-led government to open a full, independent investigation into the incident and hold any individuals found responsible for the civilian deaths accountable. The organization warned that failure to do so would make the Malian government complicit in potential war crimes. As of Friday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense had not issued a response to requests for comment on the HRW report.