More Videos Of Malian Pro-Government Forces Engaging In Cannibalism Appear
More videos depicting what appear to be members of Mali’s military and militias supporting it engaged in acts of cannibalism have surfaced on social media, after the Malian military announced last week that it was investigating a video showing a man in its uniform cutting open a corpse with the intent of eating its liver.
The authenticity of the videos could not be independently confirmed, or if they contained any details to identify when and when they were recorded.
Last week, a video circulated of a man with Malian Armed Forces insignia visible on his uniform seen cutting open a corpse with his machete, saying in the Bambara language that he intended to remove and eat its liver. Other men in uniform around him are seen laughing as he does so, with another asking for the corpse’s heart.
Nothing is seen in this video that can confirm when and where it was taken. Sources in Mali’s security forces, society and human rights organizations that spoke to Radio France International believe that the video may have been recorded in the town of Sokolo in south-central Mali in June 2022, or the village of Mourdiah in May 2023.
In a statement, the General Staff of Mali’s Armed Forces said that the “rare atrocity comparable to cannibalism” was contrary to its values, adding that it was now investigating the authenticity of the video and the identities of those filmed.
While Mali’s military and security forces have long been accused of extensive human rights abuses including forced disappearances and mass killings of civilians, these latest incidents are the first cases of alleged cannibalism by members of Mali’s military to be documented.
Reports of abuses and atrocities against civilians by the Malian Armed Forces have steadily increased since the 2022 coup that saw a military junta take control of the country, with Russian Wagner Group (now Africa Corps) mercenaries hired by the junta accused of jointly committing massacres of unarmed civilians with the Malian military.
Despite the junta’s hiring of Wagner to replace the UN peacekeeping and EU training mission it expelled, it has lost control of growing parts of northern Mali to Tuareg separatists, Islamist fighters of al-Qaeda affiliate Support Group for Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimin or JNIM), and Islamic State’s Sahel Province.