{"id":333830,"date":"2021-03-31T06:11:19","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T05:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=333830"},"modified":"2021-03-31T06:28:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T05:28:54","slug":"central-mali-deaths-what-we-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=333830","title":{"rendered":"Central Mali deaths: What we know"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Central<\/p>\n

A United Nations report released on Tuesday said a French air strike in central Mali in January killed 19 civilians, prompting a strong denial from France.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The report comes after residents of the village of Bounti said a strike had targeted them during a wedding party on January 3.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s military maintains that it struck jihadists, and has cast doubt on the UN report.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we know of the events:<\/p>\n

\u2013 What happened in Bounti? \u2013<\/h2>\n

An air strike took place near the village of Bounti on January 3 in war-torn central Malian, in circumstances that weren\u2019t immediately clear.<\/p>\n

Several residents told AFP that a wedding party had come under air attack that afternoon.<\/p>\n

An association defending the Fulani ethnic group also published the names of 18 people that it said were killed.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the UN appeared to confirm these accounts.<\/p>\n

It said in a report that about 100 male civilians had gathered to celebrate. Local tradition dictates that men and women celebrate separately.<\/p>\n

There were five armed men among the revellers, whom the UN said were likely members of the al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group Katiba Serma.<\/p>\n

A French strike on the group killed at least 22 people, the UN found, including 19 civilians. The victims were mostly from Bounti and between 23 and 71-years old.<\/p>\n

The attack also came after five French soldiers had been killed in Mali between late December and early January.<\/p>\n

\u2013 What does France say? \u2013<\/h2>\n

After the attack, social media began to buzz with speculation about a possible French military strike.<\/p>\n

But France denied wrongdoing in January and said there had been no wedding.<\/p>\n

An air attack killed several dozen jihadists in a planned and targeted operation, the French military said at the time, adding that it had monitored the group for several days.<\/p>\n

Mali\u2019s government also supported France\u2019s account of the events.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s defence ministry stood by its denial on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It said in a statement that it \u201cmaintains with consistency and reaffirms strongly\u201d that an \u201carmed terrorist group\u201d had been identified and attacked.<\/p>\n

The ministry also cast doubt on the UN probe\u2019s methodology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt contrasts unverifiable local testimonies and unsubstantiated hypotheses with a robust intelligence method used by the French armed forces,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u2013 How did the UN investigate? \u2013<\/h2>\n

The UN investigation was conducted by the human-rights division of its peacekeeping mission to Mali, which is known as MINUSMA.<\/p>\n

Investigators conducted 115 individual interviews. They also interviewed about 200 people in groups, and spoke to over 100 people on the phone, including victims and their family members.<\/p>\n

UN investigators analysed about 150 publications, including statements, news articles and satellite imagery.<\/p>\n

The probe also met French officials on March 5 and 12 to discuss the affair.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s embassy in Mali submitted comments on the investigation\u2019s preliminary findings on March 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis strike raises serious concerns about respect for the principles of the conduct of hostilities,\u201d the final report said.<\/p>\n

The UN urged France to investigate, among other things, whether its armed forces had broken international law.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Why are the facts still disputed? \u2013<\/h2>\n

There is little by way of first-hand evidence in troubled central Mali.<\/p>\n

External verification is extremely difficult in an area battered by jihadist attacks and ethnic violence.<\/p>\n

Gaining direct witness testimony is difficult and travel to the area is also hazardous.<\/p>\n

Large swathes of Mali lie outside of government control, due to a brutal jihadist conflict which first emerged in 2012 and has since spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.<\/p>\n

France, the former colonial power, intervened in Mali in 2013 to beat back the jihadists, and now has some 5,100 soldiers deployed across the semi-arid Sahel region.<\/p>\n

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed in the conflict to date, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s defence ministry said on Tuesday that the UN neither transcribed its interviews nor named interviewees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is therefore impossible to distinguish credible sources from false testimonies of possible terrorist sympathisers,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The UN said its investigation team took precautions to avoid \u201cmanipulation\u201d by its sources.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A United Nations report released on Tuesday said a French air strike in central Mali in January killed 19 civilians, prompting a strong denial from France. The report comes after residents of the village of Bounti said a strike had targeted them during a wedding party on January 3. France\u2019s military maintains that it struck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":325969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[133,819],"class_list":["post-333830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-france","tag-mali"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=333830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/325969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=333830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=333830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=333830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}