Allegations of severe human rights violations, including forced disappearances and summary executions, are increasingly being leveled against military forces in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. These armies are actively engaged in counter-jihadist operations across the Sahel region, prompting significant alarm from the United Nations.
During a Security Council video conference focused on the Sahel, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, urged the G5 Sahel Joint Force and its member states to “spare no effort” in upholding human rights. This plea was made on Friday.
For several months, this concern has been voiced with growing urgency, alongside condemnations of jihadist actions and inter-communal violence in the region.
In early April, the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) highlighted a “proliferation” of alleged misconduct attributed to national armies.
The UN documented 101 extrajudicial killings carried out by the Malian army between January and March, with an additional thirty attributed to the Nigerien army operating on Malian soil. Guillaume Ngefa, Director of MINUSMA’s human rights division, confirmed that “these figures, names, and circumstances have been thoroughly documented.”
In mid-May, Burkina Faso saw 12 individuals, arrested on suspicion of complicity with jihadists, die in gendarmerie cells. Relatives and non-governmental organizations assert that these were civilians who were summarily executed. Authorities have pledged to conduct investigations.
serious allegations surface
In Niger, reports from April indicated that 102 people were allegedly killed by the army in the western Tillabéri region, based on a circulating list of disappeared persons. While the Ministry of Defense promised an inquiry, it also commended the “professionalism” of its troops.
Consistently, human rights organizations have published lists of names and photographs, lamenting the disappearance of individuals following military patrols. A significant majority of these missing persons are from the Peul community, who are frequently, and often unfairly, associated with jihadist groups.
An anonymous official from the Malian Peul association Tabital Pulaaku expressed frustration, stating, “We can produce reports, denounce that so many Peuls have been killed and thrown into wells, or show the world a mass grave, but nothing is done afterwards.”
Abou Sow, president of Tabital Pulaaku, told the press, “It is undeniable that some Peuls have turned to jihadism, but it is naive to reduce jihadism to a single ethnicity.”
Sahelian governments have consistently stood by their armies, which, despite often being under-equipped and under-trained, bear a heavy burden in the fight against jihadism.
Addressing the Security Council on behalf of the G5 Sahel (comprising Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali), Mauritanian Foreign Minister Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed affirmed that “the achievement of full capacity by the Joint Force means its ability to fully grasp the human rights dimension.”
He assured that Mauritania “is undertaking actions to ensure respect for the law.” Abdou Abarry, Niger’s ambassador and a non-permanent member of the Council, echoed this sentiment, stating, “We fully adhere to human rights,” even as countries like Belgium voiced concern over “very serious allegations.”
In a statement released Friday after its meeting, the Security Council acknowledged “the measures announced by several Sahel governments in response to these allegations of human rights violations, and encourage their finalization.”
These accusations against national armies emerge at a pivotal moment for the Sahel region.
Firstly, the UN faces skepticism from some Security Council members regarding the scope of its mission in Mali (MINUSMA), which numbered 13,000 personnel by mid-June.
Meanwhile, France re-evaluated the terms of its engagement in the Sahel after 13 French soldiers died in November.
Despite the presence of French forces, MINUSMA (whose mandate is due for renewal), and the G5 Sahel Joint Force (established in 2017), the torrent of violence, which has claimed thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands since 2012, has not been contained.
Ibrahim Maïga of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Bamako remarked that for military forces, “civilian protection is only a related objective” to their “number one priority, which is to neutralize” jihadists.
In May, when questioned by AFP about the abuses attributed to national armies, General Pascal Facon, commander of the French anti-jihadist force, described them as “intolerable” and potentially “posing a problem in terms of the forces’ credibility.”
