US Edition
Torture and Forced Disappearances: Inside Wagner’s Secret Prisons in Mali
- Between 2022 and 2024, Russian Wagner mercenaries together with Malian military personnel detained hundreds of civilians and subjected them to severe abuse at six secret prisons located within Mali’s military bases.
- These abuses followed Mali’s 2020 and 2021 military coups and France’s 2022 withdrawal, leading the junta to enlist Wagner, whose operations often mirrored methods used in Ukraine and Russia.
- Victims, including nomads and aid workers, described torture by waterboarding, beatings, and burning while detained in former UN and army camps as Wagner tightly controlled the detention system.
- Human rights organizations documented 304 individuals abducted or missing between October 2024 and March 2025, and recorded a total of 668 such cases from November 2023 through April 2025, with survivors describing repeated torture that left them struggling to breathe.
- These findings suggest a deliberate strategy by Wagner and Mali's armed forces to terrorize civilians, fueling forced displacements and raising concerns about impunity and ongoing instability.
16 Articles
16 Articles
Russia's Wagner Group abused civilians in secret prisons in Mali, investigation finds
Since 2021, Russian Wagner mercenaries have detained, tortured, and forcibly disappeared hundreds of civilians in secret prisons across Mali, according to a joint investigation published on June 12 by Forbidden Stories, France 24, Le Monde, and IStories.The investigation found that mercenaries with Russia's Wagner Group, working alongside Malian government forces, had systematically abducted and detained civilians, holding them in prisons at for…
According to research, the Russian mercenary group Wagner kidnapped, detained and tortured hundreds of civilians in West African Mali. On Monday, it had become public from diplomatic circles that the Wagner group officially left Mali after more than three years – but its units were integrated into a Russian successor organization. The damage caused by the notorious Wagner group is enormous: The surviving victims, who were questioned in a Maurita…
Torture and forced disappearances: Inside Wagner’s secret prisons in Mali
Since arriving in Mali in 2021, Russian Wagner mercenaries have abducted and detained hundreds of civilians in former UN bases and military camps shared with the Malian army. Our investigation, as part of the Viktoriia project, reveals secret prisons where abuse and torture are carried out with total impunity.
Russian Wagner group fighters secretly detained and tortured civilians in Mali
Le Monde, Forbidden Stories and media partners investigated arbitrary arrests of Malians committed by Russian mercenaries. We reveal at least six bases where civilians were illegally detained and secretly tortured.
After three years, the Russian mercenary group Wagner officially leaves Mali. Already during the deployment there has been criticism of their methods. A search now reveals brutal details.
Survivors report beatings, burns and waterboarding by Wagner mercenaries in Mali. According to a research, the group is said to have detained civilians.
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- 44% of the sources lean Left
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