Africa Corps Accused of Massacres in CAR Mining Communities
ADF STAFF
Authorities in the Central African Republic found a 19-year-old artisanal miner’s body burned and decapitated in the town of Koki, in the prefecture of Ouham.
He was one of at least 20 artisanal miners who were killed in mid-June after failing to attend a meeting called by members of Russia’s paramilitary Africa Corps, formerly the Wagner Group. After the meeting, the mercenaries attacked the mining sites surrounding Koki, according to the CAR’s Corbeau News Centrafrique (CNC).
It was not the first massacre committed by Russian mercenaries in Koki.
About a week later, Africa Corps fighters called a meeting of stakeholders in the town’s mining sector — including buyers, miners and small traders — at a Catholic church near Koro-Mpoko, home of another mining site in Ouham. The mercenaries ordered everyone in attendance to drop their bags and empty their pockets. The attendees complied.
According to CNC, the mercenaries declared that no one was allowed to buy gold on the site and that anyone who did would be executed. The mercenaries designated six people as middlemen to buy gold exclusively for them. Any violation of that rule, they said, also was punishable by death.
The mercenaries then confiscated everything the miners and traders brought to the meeting, including mobile phones, gold reserves, valuable tools and cash.
The mercenaries’ actions have gotten increasingly violent in the CAR since late last year, especially around Ouham, a sprawling prefecture teeming with natural resources that borders Chad. The group’s strategy is simple, lethal and unwavering: order locals to comply with their orders and kill those who don’t.
In September, shortly after the death of former Wagner boss Yevgeny Prighozin, a man using the name Alioum was summoned to the gold mine on the outskirts of Koki.
Alioum, who leads one of several vigilante groups recognized in the community, said he met three white soldiers accompanied by about a dozen soldiers from the
Central African Armed Forces (FACA) who spoke to local community leaders and the heads of other vigilante groups.
“One of the white soldiers began to speak, saying we should inform everyone who lives near the mine to leave the area because it has been sold off by the government,” Alioum told The Daily Beast. “When we asked who it was sold to, they refused to tell us.”
The locals stood their ground, saying they had nowhere else to go.
“Then they told us that we were going to regret our decision,” Alioum said.
About a month passed.
Just before noon on October 22, Russian paramilitary forces accompanied by FACA members arrived by helicopter near the Koki mine and exchanged gunfire for nearly 30 minutes with about two dozen rebels from the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), The Daily Beast reported.
Several witnesses said Russian mercenaries then flew another helicopter overhead, dropping bombs and firing at people who tried to escape from the area.
“While the aerial strikes were taking place, another group of white soldiers and FACA officials spread themselves across the town, making sure that all the exits were blocked,” Alioum said. “Many people were trapped.”
Witnesses told The Daily Beast that four CPC rebels and 12 civilians were killed that day.
The fighting raged for five days, during which dozens of local men were rounded up, tortured and killed. Numerous homes and businesses were torched.
“Koki was brought to its knees,” Kondogbia, an artisanal miner whose home was destroyed during the onslaught, told The Daily Beast. “The attackers made sure everyone who worked at the mine was either killed or rendered homeless.”
The Daily Beast referred to the October massacre in Koki as the first major atrocity committed by Russian mercenaries in Africa under the new leadership of Gen. Andrei Averyanov, a notorious member of GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.
In other areas of Ouham, Russian mercenaries in military vehicles patrol near mining sites to prevent locals from prospecting. In Ndachima, Midas Ressources, a company affiliated with Africa Corps, has told locals to leave the area or be forcibly evicted.
Russian mercenaries have reportedly killed more than 900 civilians in the CAR since December 2020, making them the deadliest armed group operating in the country during that time frame, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.