Amnesty International has called on the Malian authorities to launch a “thorough, independent and impartial” investigation after stating that it had evidence of the summary execution of at least 19 Malian soldiers captured following an ambush on July 18, 2026, in the Tabrichat area along the Anéfis-Gao road in northern Mali.
In a report released on Thursday, the human rights organisation said it had analyzed 12 videos circulated on social media to reconstruct the events surrounding what it described as the summary execution of Malian soldiers on July 18. According to Amnesty, three of the videos show at least 19 soldiers walking through the desert with their hands behind their heads, indicating they had surrendered.
Another video reportedly shows several men lying on the ground while five armed individuals open fire on them. Additional close-up footage allegedly enabled the identification of the bodies as those of the same soldiers. Other videos also appear to show prisoners being beaten and subjected to ill-treatment.
“It is clear that the soldiers were hors de combat before being subjected to ill-treatment and then executed,” said Ousmane Diallo, Amnesty International’s Senior Sahel Researcher. He described the evidence gathered as “irrefutable proof” of war crimes.
The organisation further stated that two videos show a white flag, which it identified as belonging to the al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), mounted on the front of vehicles used by the attackers.
The ambush was separately claimed by the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a northern Malian separatist movement, and by JNIM, with both groups asserting that they had conducted the operation jointly. They claimed to have inflicted heavy losses on the Malian Armed Forces and their Russian partners from the Africa Corps. However, no independent assessment has confirmed those claims.
Following the attack, the General Staff of the Malian Armed Forces said that air strikes had enabled the convoy to break out of the ambushes and continue its mission, without providing any casualty figures, according to the Associated Press.
On July 23, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also called for a “thorough and independent” investigation into the incident.
For his part, Azawad Liberation Front spokesperson Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane said he supported the principle of such an investigation, while stressing that the videos should first be authenticated before any conclusions are drawn, according to Reuters.
Amnesty International noted that international humanitarian law prohibits the execution of captured combatants who have surrendered or otherwise been rendered hors de combat, and requires that they be protected. The organization urged the Malian authorities to identify those responsible, prosecute them in accordance with fair trial guarantees, and combat impunity.
The situation in Mali remains under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which opened a probe into alleged crimes in the country in 2013. Amnesty stressed that Mali’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, scheduled to take effect on June 23, 2027, will not affect ongoing proceedings or the ICC’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed before that date.
MD/te/Sf/lb/as/APA