A shopkeeper who fled to a refugee camp in Mauritania has given the BBC a harrowing, first-hand account of being tortured by Russian mercenaries in Mali and witnessing the execution of two innocent men. His testimony is one of several collected by the BBC that details a brutal pattern of abuse by the fighters, formerly known as the Wagner Group.
The shopkeeper, identified as “Ahmed” for his safety, described how the mercenaries—regular customers at his store in the town of Nampala—accused his boss of collaborating with jihadists. He was detained, subjected to waterboarding, and had a knife held to his throat. The ordeal culminated in the mercenaries beheading two other detainees in front of him.
A Campaign of Terror
“They brought one of the bodies closer to me to smell the fresh blood,” Ahmed said, struggling to hold back tears. “And said: ‘If you don’t tell us the whereabouts of the shop owner, you will suffer a similar fate.'”
His life was spared only after a Malian army officer vouched for his boss’s innocence. Ahmed immediately fled Mali with his family.
These ground-level atrocities were reportedly celebrated by the mercenaries themselves in a private Telegram channel, where they shared photos and videos of “murder, rape, torture, cannibalism and desecration of corpses,” according to a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations.
From Wagner to Africa Corps: A Legacy of Abuse
The violence stems from a 2021 military coup in Mali, after which the junta expelled French counter-terrorism forces and enlisted Wagner. While the group officially withdrew in mid-2024, its operations and most of its personnel have been absorbed into the “Africa Corps,” a new structure under Russia’s defence ministry.
Analysts and monitoring groups confirm that the Africa Corps has inherited Wagner’s brutal tactics. A report from the Timbuktu Institute states that the new group inherits “Wagner’s legacy of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings and acts of torture.”
A Nation Traumatized
The conflict has created a flood of refugees, with nearly 50,000 people now in the M’berra camp in Mauritania. Among them is “Bintu,” whose husband was killed. “When I hear the name Wagner, I feel traumatised,” she told the BBC. “They have brought sadness to me.”
Another refugee, “Youssouf,” described being beaten, tortured with a metal rod, and nearly thrown down a well. He witnessed one of his friends die during the torture session. “They revved the engine and blew exhaust into my nose to wake me up fully,” he recalled. “They did the same to my friend, but he didn’t respond. That’s when they realised he was dead.”
Despite the well-documented atrocities, the Russian and Malian defence ministries have not responded to the BBC’s requests for comment. For the victims, the trauma inflicted by the mercenaries is a lasting wound, and the world’s silence is a further injustice.
By James Kisoo
