France said Monday that it was concerned by information that hundreds of civilians had been killed in the Malian village of Moura in an operation by elements of the armed forces joined by Russian mercenary allies.

"France is deeply concerned by information of mass abuses in the village of Moura by elements of the Malian armed forces accompanied by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, which are said to have caused the death of hundreds of civilians," the French foreign ministry said in a statement.

Mali's army said Friday that it had killed 203 combatants in an operation in Moura late last month, which it termed a "terrorist fiefdom."

Its announcement came as numerous social media reports in Mali this week alleged that dozens of people, including civilians, had been killed in Moura.

AFP was unable to verify the army's claimed death toll or the social media reports about civilian deaths.

The French statement called for the rapid opening of "national and international investigations" to bring the perpetrators of the killings to justice.

"The fight against terrorist groups operating in the Sahel can in no way justify violations of human rights," the ministry said.

"Indiscriminate violence against civilian populations only strengthens these groups," it added.

The EU also said Monday that it was "very worried" about reports of a massacre in Moura, urging the West African state to allow investigators to access the region.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called the reports of abuses "very worrying."

"The fight against terrorism can in no way justify massive human rights violations," he said in a statement.

Borrell's statement comes after the US State Department on Sunday also called for an inquiry, saying the reports of a massacre were "extremely disturbing."

Mali, a landlocked nation of 21 million people, has struggled to contain a brutal jihadist insurgency that emerged in 2012, before spreading to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

France announced in February that it was withdrawing its troops from Mali after a breakdown in relations with the country's ruling junta, ending a near 10-year deployment.

France sent soldiers to its former colony in 2013 to beat back advancing Islamic extremists, but its initial battlefield success was followed by a grinding anti-insurgency operation and rising hostility from Malians.

Anger in Paris about the alleged arrival of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, which analysts say has close ties to the Kremlin, also hastened the French departure.

Mali opposition figure summoned after junta criticism
Bamako (AFP) April 4, 2022 - Malian authorities have summoned opposition politician Oumar Mariko, a family member and security official said Monday, after he criticised the ruling junta and suggested that the army "was murdering people".

Mariko's left-leaning SADI party also stated on Sunday that heavily armed men had broken into the politician's home and demanded that relatives reveal his location.

The move comes after Mariko suggested the army "was murdering people" during a public meeting, and called on the ruling junta to take responsibility for the situation in the conflict-torn Sahel nation.

According to a video seen by AFP, Mariko listed several recent mass killings in Mali and called them "unacceptable" -- including murky events that occurred last week in Moura in the centre of the country.

Mali's army said on Friday that it killed 203 militants in Moura. However, that announcement followed widely shared social media reports of a civilian massacre in the area.

The United States, European Union, United Nations and Mali's former colonial power France have all raised concerns about the possible killing of civilians in Moura.

"What pretence is there to support this?" Mariko said in the video, referring to killings.

"When a people is not master of its destiny, a revolution is needed," he added.

A family member of the politician's and a security official both told AFP on Monday that he has received a summons to appear before the country's gendarmerie on Tuesday morning.

SADI, in its statement, said that the armed men who had come to his home on Sunday had waited there "to kidnap him".

It also denounced the "intimidation and threats of the government" and called on "national and international opinion to bear witness to the autocratic excesses of the transitional regime".

An impoverished nation of 21 million people, Mali is governed by a junta that seized power in a military coup in August 2020.

The junta promised to restore civilian rule after the putsch, but it is under sanctions from the West Africa bloc ECOWAS for ignoring an earlier commitment to stage elections in February this year.

Swathes of Mali lie outside of government control, due to a brutal jihadist conflict that first emerged in 2012, and has since spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

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