DOUANKARA, Mauritania: A new wave of terror is sweeping through Mali as Russia’s Africa Corps— the unit that replaced the Wagner Group stands accused of rapes, beheadings, disappearances and indiscriminate killings. Civilians fleeing to the Mauritanian border told the Associated Press that the abuses mirror, and in some cases exceed, Wagner’s brutality.
Refugees describe masked white soldiers and their Malian military partners storming villages, killing men, abducting young women, torching homes and calling locals “dogs” in Russian. Some families say they found bodies with organs missing, a grim pattern long associated with Wagner’s earlier operations.
In the Sahel, already the world’s deadliest region for extremist violence, civilians now find themselves trapped between jihadist threats and the terror unleashed by joint Malian–Russian offensives. With the U.N. gone, international observers pushed out, and Mali’s withdrawal from the ICC, abuses are becoming easier to commit and harder to document.
Human rights experts warn that the transition from Wagner to Africa Corps brings the Russian state directly under legal scrutiny. Despite the rebranding, fighters, vehicles, commanders and tactics appear unchanged and in some villages, survivors say conditions have worsened.
From mothers watching their sons executed in front of them to families fleeing without their infants in blind panic, the testimonies paint a chilling portrait of a conflict spiraling further into impunity.
For many, life in exile is now defined by grief, fear, and unanswered questions. As one survivor said:
“Only the name changed. The terror stayed the same.”
-WNN with Pronczuk
