HRW says Russia's Africa Corps killed 8 civilians in Mali

A Russian paramilitary force has been accused of killing eight civilians, including three children, in an airstrike in central Mali last month, according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch published on Friday, July 31, 2026. The rights group alleges the attack by Russia's government-controlled Africa Corps was unlawfully indiscriminate.

The incident occurred on June 15 in the village of Kyrnia, located in Mali's volatile Mopti region. Human Rights Watch stated that an aircraft identified by two Malian military sources as a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 dropped at least two munitions. One strike hit near the residence of the village chief, killing his wife, two of his children, and another child. A second strike struck a nearby cattle market, killing four men.

The rights group said its investigation, which included remote interviews with 19 witnesses, local journalists, and Malian military sources, as well as analysis of satellite imagery, found no evidence that fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked militant group Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) were killed. JNIM has controlled Kyrnia for approximately six years, and while an estimated 100 of its fighters were reportedly in...