Russia's Africa Corps committing war crimes in Mali, AP reports
Russia's Africa Corps is carrying out atrocities, including rapes and beheadings, against civilians in Mali, refugees told the Associated Press (AP) in a story published Dec. 7.
The Africa Corps is a paramilitary group controlled by the Russian Defense Ministry. Russian mercenaries have fought alongside Malian government forces against Islamic militants in Mali since 2021, with the Africa Corps overtaking Wagner forces in the past year.
Refugees told the AP that the Africa Corps is as brutal as Wagner. They shared videos of burned villages and accounts of finding bodies of loved ones with their organs removed.
The AP spoke to 34 refugees who fled the intense violence in Mali to neighboring Mauritania. They reported kidnappings, sexual assault, and civilian killings.
"They are the same men, paid by the government, and continue the massacres. There is no difference between Wagner and Africa Corps," the village chief told the AP.
The Africa Corps supplanted Wagner mercenaries in Mali after a short-lived rebellion against Moscow led by former Wagner Commander Yevgeny Prigozhin in June 2023. Following the rebellion and subsequent death of Prigozhin, Russia sought to tighten its control over operations in Africa — the majority of which had been led by Wagner forces.
The Wagner company announced its withdrawal from Mali in June 2025. The mercenary group was accused of numerous atrocities in Africa, with one investigation finding that Wagner forces have detained, tortured, and forcibly disappeared hundreds of civilians in secret prisons across Mali.
But since the Africa Corps operates directly under the aegis of the Russian Defense Ministry, legal experts said Moscow is responsible for the group's reported atrocities in Mali.
"(A)ny war crimes committed by Africa Corps in Mali are, in principle, attributable to the Russian government under the rules on state responsibility," Lindsay Freeman, senior director of international accountability at the UC Berkeley School of Law's Human Rights Center, told the AP.
