Among the civilians fleeing violence in Mali, many tell stories about “the white men” — the mercenary fighters working for Russia’s Africa Corps who continue to rape and kill civilians with impunity.
The family of a 14-year-old girl who sought refuge in Mauritania told the Associated Press (AP) at the border crossing that Russian fighters had entered the family’s tent, beheaded the girl’s uncle, forced everyone else to leave, then raped her. The girl turned up days later with her remaining family at the Mauritanian border critically ill from the attack.
“We were so scared that we were not even able to scream anymore,” her aunt told the AP. “We were all scared because we thought that after the girl, they would exterminate us all.”
Seven months after Africa Corps replaced the Wagner Group as Russia’s boots on the ground in Mali, little else appears to have changed. Other civilians escaping violence in Mali told the AP similar stories about being attacked by Africa Corps fighters working alongside the Malian military. The mercenaries claim to be battling terrorists across the Sahelian country but have regularly been accused of targeting civilians.
“They took everything from us. They burned our houses. They killed our husbands,” another Malian woman told the AP in Mauritania. “But that’s not all they did. They tried to rape us.”
A third woman said that she watched several armed white men drag her 18-year-old daughter into their house. She ran in fear and has not seen her daughter since.
Russian forces have been in Mali since 2021, when the ruling junta invited Wagner mercenaries into the country and expelled French forces that had been working with the elected government to combat Islamic State-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and other groups.
Since then, violence and destruction in Mali have exploded, thanks in part to the brutality of Russian fighters. The 2022 attack on the central Mali community of Moura became an indelible illustration of that brutality: Wagner fighters assaulted the market there alongside Malian soldiers. Over three days, Wagner fighters, whom villagers described as white men speaking an unknown language, helped to kill 500 civilians and raped 58 women and girls, according to the United Nations.
Experts told the U.N. that a “climate of terror and complete impunity” had surrounded the Wagner Group’s activities in Mali. Wagner fighters frequently shared photos and videos of the atrocities they committed against Malian civilians on Telegram channel.
The Africa Report found 322 videos and 647 photographs in June 2025. A report released by the European Council on Foreign Relations found that Wagner fighters “regularly shared photos and videos of murder, rape, torture, cannibalism and desecration of corpses against alleged insurgents and civilians.”
In 2023, Wagner fighters helped Malian troops reclaim the Kidal region, a Tuareg stronghold, killing dozens of civilians in the process. A Tuareg ambush near Tinzouaten in 2024 killed more than 50 Wagner fighters along with dozens of Malian soldiers. Months later, in June 2025, Wagner announced that it was leaving Mali.
But it never really left. Many of those same Wagner fighters simply became part of Africa Corps, operated directly by Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Since then, little appears to have changed in the way Russians operate in Mali, according to witnesses.
Bethsabee Djoman Elidje, the women’s health manager at the clinic in the Mauritanian camp, told the AP that the severely injured 14-year-old rape victim is likely one example of a much larger issue.
“We are convinced that there are many cases like this,” Elidje said, adding that few patients seek treatment unless or until the complications become life-threatening.
Two other Malians showed the AP videos of villages burned by Africa Corps.
“These people don’t even talk to us,” one Malian village chief said. “As soon as they encounter someone, they kill them.”