UN incriminates France in January massacre of civilians in Mali

A United Nations (UN) probe has found France guilty of killing a large number of civilians in central Mali, where a persisting French military intervention has already sparked controversy.

On January 3, French fighter jets struck a site near the remote village of Bounti. Local residents and villagers said at the time that the strike targeted a wedding event and killed civilians.

But France insisted that the bombing had been conducted based on precise intelligence, rejecting allegations of slaying wedding guests. It also denied that a wedding had taken place in the area that day at all.

The United Nations (UN) mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, together with the UN forensic experts, subsequently launched a probe into the deadly incident.

In a report summarizing the probe’s findings on Tuesday, the UN said at least 22 people died in the French aerial strike earlier this year, of whom 19 were civilians.

The UN was able to confirm that there had been a wedding ceremony that brought together around 100 civilians at the site of the strike, including five people who were believed to be members of militant groups, the report said.

“The group affected by the strike was overwhelmingly composed of civilians who are protected persons under international humanitarian law,” It added. “This strike raises serious concerns about respect for the principles of the conduct of hostilities.”

The report constitutes a rare criticism of the actions of the French forces and their operations across Mali.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the French Defense Ministry said it had “numerous reservations about the methodology used” to prepare the report.

The ministry said it “maintains with consistency and reaffirms strongly” that “on January 3, French armed forces carried out an airstrike targeting an armed terrorist group identified as such” in the troubled Malian region.

France, a former colonizer of the region, intervened in Mali in 2013 purportedly to beat back increasing militant activity. The country maintains a military force of more than 5,100 in Mali and other former colonies in West Africa in purported efforts to counter militants it claims are linked to the al-Qaeda and Daesh terrorist groups.

Several French soldiers have been killed in Mali over the past months, and Malian citizens have protested France’s military presence in the streets as well as on social media platforms.

Violence, however, has steadily worsened in the region, with militant groups using northern Mali to launch attacks on neighboring countries.

Last January, hundreds of people took to the streets in the capital of Mali to protest the presence of French troops in the Sahel region.

The UN confirmation that France massacred Malian civilians comes as Paris faces tough choices about how to stay in the Sahel region without getting bogged down in a potentially un-winnable war.

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