Soldiers from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger engaged in the fight against jihadists in the central Sahel have been accused of increasingly abusing local populations.

“Peace and Security in Africa”: the theme of the meeting organized by the Security Council is broad, but one of the main topics expected “will be the accusations of human rights violations by the armies of the Sahel,” a diplomat in Bamako said.

At the beginning of April, the UN mission in Mali (Minusma) denounced the “multiplication” of misdeeds attributed to the national armies.

Excesses “here and there”

In Niger, 102 people were reportedly killed by the army in the western region of Tillabéri, according to a list of missing persons circulated in April.

“The governments of our countries do not encourage human rights violations,” Mali’s foreign ministry Tiébilé Dramé said on Wednesday.