DAKAR. Senegal — Dozens of people who have fled Mali tell The Associated Press that a new Russian military unit that replaced the Wagner mercenary group this year is carrying out abuses, including rapes and beheadings, as it teams up with Mali\u2019s military to hunt down extremists.<\/p>\n
The refugees said the Africa Corps, which reports to Russia’s Defense Ministry, is using the same tactics as Wagner. Their accounts, collected during rare access to the Mauritanian border, have not been reported by international media until now.<\/p>\n
West Africa\u2019s vast Sahel region has become the deadliest place in the world for extremism. The military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in recent years have turned from Western allies to Russia for help combating the fighters affiliated with al-Qaida or the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n
The Africa Corps replaced Wagner six months ago. That sparked hope for less brutality among weary civilians who the United Nations says<\/a> have been abused by all sides. But refugees described a new reign of terror by the \u201cwhite men\u201d in the vast and largely lawless territory. The AP spoke to 34 refugees. Most spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.<\/p>\n Here are takeaways from the AP investigation.<\/p>\n Two refugees showed videos of villages they said were burned by Africa Corps. Two others said they found bodies of loved ones with liver and kidneys missing. Previous AP reporting<\/a> has tracked social media channels, likely administered by Wagner members, that shared images of men in military uniform butchering corpses of what appear to be Malian civilians, hacking out organs and posing with severed limbs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a scorched-earth policy,\u201d said a Malian village chief who fled to Mauritania last month for the second time. \u201cThe soldiers speak to no one. Anyone they see, they shoot. No questions, no warning. People don\u2019t even know why they are being killed.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThere is no difference between Wagner and Africa Corps.\u201d<\/p>\n Malian authorities never publicly acknowledged Wagner\u2019s presence, and have not acknowledged Africa Corps. But Russian state media in recent weeks have published reports from Mali praising Africa Corps for defending the country from \u201cterrorists,” and Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the unit is active \u201cat the request of the Malian authorities,\u201d providing ground escorts, search-and-rescue operations and other work.<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry did not respond to AP questions.<\/p>\n Reported abuses against civilians intensified when Wagner teamed up with the underfunded Malian army in 2021. According to private security analysts, Mali paid Russia about $10 million a month for Wagner\u2019s assistance. While the group was never officially under the Kremlin\u2019s command, it had close ties to Russia\u2019s intelligence and military.<\/p>\n Moscow began developing the Africa Corps as a rival to Wagner after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin<\/a> was killed in a plane crash in 2023 following his brief armed rebellion in Russia that challenged the rule of President Vladimir Putin<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is unclear whether Mali\u2019s agreement remains the same for Africa Corps. Much is unknown about the unit’s operations, including the number of fighters, which analysts estimate at around 2,000.<\/p>\n Not all Africa Corps fighters are Russian. Several refugees told the AP they saw Black men speaking foreign languages. The European Council on Foreign Relations in a recent report said the unit recruits from Russia, Belarus and African states.<\/p>\n