Background
Armed conflict between the army and armed groups continued. The Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and the Islamic State in the Sahel (ISS) fought for control of the Gao region.
A new constitution was adopted after it was voted for via a referendum.
In June, the UN Security Council approved the termination as of 31 December of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali. In the context of the gradual departure of UN troops, and the breakdown of the 2015 peace and reconciliation agreement, fighting erupted in August between government forces and the Strategic Permanent Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD), a coalition of armed groups. In November, government forces regained the town of Kidal from the CSP-PSD.
Freedom of expression
In January, Aminata Dicko, a human rights defender, was forced into exile in the cities of Geneva and Paris after denouncing abuses by the armed forces in a briefing to the UN Security Council, following which the gendarmerie summoned her for questioning in connection with allegations of high treason and defamation.
Cheick Mohamed Cherif Koné and Dramane Diarra, magistrates and members of the 20 February Appeal, a pro-democracy association, were disbarred from the magistrate’s roll in August and September, respectively. In 2021, Cheick Koné was removed as senior advocate-general at the supreme court after he criticized judicial investigations, including in the case of former prime minister Soumeylou Boubѐye Maïga who died in pretrial detention in 2022.
Freedom of peaceful assembly
In August, in Bandiagara district, Mopti region, security forces killed one person and injured seven others when they fired at people protesting against killings by armed groups.
Arbitrary arrests and detentions
In March, journalist Mohamed Youssouf Bathily, also known as Ras Bath, was arrested and charged with making unfounded claims and discrediting the state after he declared on the radio that Soumeylou Boubѐye Maïga was “assassinated” (see above, Freedom of expression). In July, he was acquitted on the first charge but remained in detention.
During the same month, Rokiatou Doumbia, also known as Rose Vie Chère, was arrested for criticizing on TikTok the government’s economic performance and security policies. She was charged with “inciting revolt” and “disturbing public order”, given a one-year prison term and ordered to pay XOF 1 million (about USD 1,636) in August.
In September, Adama Ben Diarra, also known as Ben le Cerveau, a National Transitional Council (CNT) member, was arrested when he said via radio that the government should organize presidential elections for February 2024 in accordance with its agenda. He was given a two-year sentence (one year suspended) for “discrediting the state” and removed from the CNT.
Enforced disappearances
On 26 January, Sory Koné, the programme director of Radio DANAYA in Souba, Ségou region, was abducted from his home by unidentified people, suspected to be members of the security forces. His whereabouts and fate remained unknown.
Journalists Aliou Touré and Idriss Martinez Konipo were held, presumably by security force members, in unknown locations for five and three days, respectively, during April.
The fate and whereabouts of human rights defender Hammadoun Dicko, abducted in December in the capital, Bamako by unidentified individuals, remained unknown.
Violations of international humanitarian law
Armed groups
On 22 April, the GSIM attacked army bases in Sévaré, Mopti region, next to the airport and a UN camp. The government said 10 civilians were killed and 61 others wounded. Twenty houses and shelters hosting internally displaced people were destroyed during the attack.
Between 27 and 28 June, ISS fighters attacked Gaina and Boyna villages in the Gao region, killing 17 villagers. After the attack, they stole livestock and abducted at least four villagers from Boyna.
In July, armed assailants attacked Djankoin village, in the Ségou region, killing at least 10 civilians, according to local and media sources.
During August, according to the media, GSIM fighters carried out attacks in Bandiagara region, killing 15 civilians in Bodio and 22 others in Yarou.
From August onwards, the GSIM restricted access to the city of Timbuktu, after the army reoccupied Goundam and Ber military camps in the Timbuktu area, following the withdrawal from the area of UN troops. According to OCHA, at least 33,100 people from Timbuktu had moved to neighbouring countries since the siege began.
On 7 September, armed combatants attacked a civilian passenger boat leaving Gao for Mopti, near Zarhoy village, killing at least 49 civilians and 15 soldiers.1
Government forces and allies
In May, OHCHR, the UN human rights office, published its findings on a military operation in Moura during March 2022, concluding that some 500 people had been summarily executed and at least 58 women raped by Malian soldiers and foreign military personnel in a five-day operation. No one was held accountable for the killings. Armed forces and allied foreign military personnel deployed in Mali continued to carry out international humanitarian law violations.
On 6 March, according to Human Rights Watch, soldiers and foreign military personnel rounded up 200 men in Sossobé, Mopti region, and took them to the mosque during a joint patrol. According to witnesses, the bodies of five of them were later found on the outskirts of Sossobé, while the fate and whereabouts of 21 others who were blindfolded, handcuffed and taken away in helicopters remained unknown. The rest were released.
In another joint military operation later in March, also involving Dozo hunters, 26 people, including a six-year-old boy, were killed in Ouenkoro, according to media reports. Soldiers collected smartphones from people in the local market to prevent them from communicating evidence of violations.
According to witnesses, on 9 May, foreign military personnel attacked a temporary herders’ camp in Gogoro in Douentza region, killing 11 civilians. The whereabouts and fate of four people, including a 10-year-old boy, whom they abducted, remained unknown.
During an army offensive on 5 October, soldiers accompanied by foreign military personnel, extrajudicially executed 17 villagers in Ersane in Bourem district, Gao region. Media and local sources said all of them were beheaded, and 15 of the bodies were left booby-trapped.
Sexual and gender-based violence
In April, the UN said it had recorded 470 incidents of sexual violence carried out by armed groups and government and allied forces, between January and March, 51 of which were conflict related. All the victims were women and 11 were girls as young as 12.
Discrimination
Violence and discrimination against people based on work and descent remained prevalent. In May, UN experts called on the Malian authorities to criminalize slavery, noting that descent-based slavery remained widespread. Between February and March, the Assizes Court in Kayes convicted 56 people in connection with attacks, including the killings of victims of work and descent-based discrimination which took place in the towns of Diandioumé in 2020, and Bafoulabé in 2021.
