An exhaustive report into strife-torn Mali by UN investigators says it has garnered evidence of war crimes committed by the security forces and others, and of crimes against humanity by jihadists and other armed groups.
The 338-page investigation by the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali covers six years, from 2012 to 2018.
The report has been submitted to UN chief Antonio Guterres, who last week sent it to the Security Council.
AFP acquired a copy of the investigation on Tuesday.
Following are its key accusations:
- Armed forces -
The Commission says there are "reasonable grounds to believe" -- meaning, evidence meeting the standards of international law -- "that the Malian defence and security forces committed war crimes."
This includes "violence to the life and person of civilians and persons hors de combat suspected of being affiliated or cooperating with extremist armed groups," it says.
It gives the example of what it calls the summary execution of 16 Mauritanian and Malian preachers, most of whom were Arabs, on the night of September 8-9 2012.
The group had been stopped at a checkpoint, where they said they were going to Bamako, the capital, for a religious seminar.
They were killed by at least five troops from the Diabali military camp in central Mali, "who suspected them of being affiliated with extremist armed groups," the report says.
- Jihadists -
"Extremist armed groups committed crimes against humanity and war crimes," the report says.
These include "murder, maiming and other cruel treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, hostage-taking and attacks against personnel of humanitarian organizations and MINUSMA," the UN peacekeeping force in Mali.
An example, it says, is an attack by Al-Qaeda-linked fighters on an army camp at Aguelhok, on the country's northern border with Algeria, in January 2012.
More than 100 soldiers died, many of whom were executed even though they were wounded or had surrendered, the Commission says, describing this as a war crime.
The report also documents 17 cases of women or young girls who were raped by members of the Islamic police in Timbuktu between 2012 and 2013, when the town was occupied by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) and the Ansar Eddine group. The attacks are crimes against humanity, it says.
- Against a self-defence group -
So-called self-defence groups sprang up in central Mali, a region with long-standing ethnic rivalries, after jihadists moved into the region in 2015.
The report cites a massacre that occurred on June 17, 2017, in which at least 39 villagers including children were killed in the Koro area.
It blames an armed group called Dan Na Ambassagou, which is drawn from the Dogon community, which retaliated for the death of one of their members by attacking several hamlets of the Fulani community, also called Peuls.
The massacre marked the beginning of "systematic" attacks on the Fulani in Koro, the report says.
"The Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that those acts amount to murder that constitutes a crime against humanity."