The facts
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Mali’s military and its Russian paramilitary allies, the Africa Corps, of killing civilians in breach of international law. The report, released on Monday, also states that opposition armed groups have committed similar violations. HRW’s findings are based on interviews with 30 individuals, including witnesses and journalists, conducted between late July and mid-September. The watchdog documented two drone attacks, one on a market in Bandiagara on August 19 that killed six civilians and wounded at least 20, and another in the Kidal region on July 29 that destroyed part of a health facility. HRW also reported that Malian soldiers shot and killed five girls in Segou. Additionally, the report details alleged torture and execution of at least 19 captured Malian troops by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and allied Azawad Liberation Front fighters. JNIM acknowledged prisoners were killed but denied ordering the deaths, while the Azawad Liberation Front denied executing soldiers. HRW urged the African Union’s Peace and Security Council to take action to prevent further atrocities in Mali.
Our take
Well, fuck me sideways with a rusty bayonet. Mali’s military and their Russian Africa Corps buddies - let’s call them Wagner’s shittier, even-less-accountable sequel - have decided that international law is just the boring bit you skip before the cool part where you blow up a marketplace. Their idea of a 'precision drone strike' is apparently seeing a crowd buying tomatoes and thinking, 'Yep, that’s the enemy command post.' Six dead, twenty wounded, because some cunt with a joystick has the strategic depth of a puddle and the moral compass of a fucking landmine. Bravo. You absolute heroes. You’ve managed to turn counter-insurgency into a game of 'Which Civilian Gathering Can We Vaporize Next?' The gold medal goes to the follow-up strike that wrecked part of a health facility, because nothing says 'winning hearts and minds' like making sure the wounded have nowhere to fucking go. These pricks aren’t soldiers; they’re exterminators with a budget, and the pest is 'people existing near things.' And just to show it’s a full-spectrum shitshow, the Malian army itself contributed by shooting five girls in Segou. Five. Girls. What was the fucking threat assessment? A lethal game of hopscotch? An imminent glitter bomb attack? This isn’t warfare; it’s a coward’s wet dream executed by trigger-happy dickheads who think a uniform is a license for murder. Not to be out-retched, the local jihadist franchise JNIM and their Azawad Liberation Front pals allegedly tortured and executed at least nineteen captured soldiers. JNIM’s defense is a fucking masterpiece of weasel-worded bullshit: they 'acknowledged prisoners were killed but denied ordering the deaths.' Oh, well shit, that’s fine then! It was just an organic, spontaneous, prisoner-torturing event that got a bit out of hand! 'The prisoners just… fell on the knives, Your Honor. Repeatedly. While being screamed at.' The Azawad Front just denies it outright, completing the triad of pathological lying that makes this conflict a three-way dick-measuring contest where the unit of measurement is dead innocents. So here we are. The government’s mercenary-backed goons are bombing markets and clinics, its own army is executing kids, and the 'opposition' is torturing captives and offering excuses so pathetic they’d get laughed out of a kindergarten 'Who Ate the Glue' tribunal. And Human Rights Watch is urging the African Union to 'take action.' Good fucking luck. The only action anyone here is taking is competing for the title of 'Biggest Cunt in the Sahel.' It’s atrocity pinball, and the score is just a pile of corpses while the flippers - made of pure, unadulterated bullshit - keep bouncing the blame around. A masterclass in how to make a failed state into a fucking abattoir with a flag.
