French airstrikes in January at a wedding party in the West African country of Mali were “in complete violation of international human rights and international humanitarian law,” a new report said on Monday.
The study, France’s Shadow War in Mali Airstrikes at the Bounti Wedding, has been carried out by Stoke-White Investigations, a unit of the UK-based Stoke White Lawyers.
According to the report, contrary to France’s claim that it attacked armed “terrorist group” Katiba Serma, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, the attack in Bounti village as part of Operation Barkhane on Jan. 3 led to civilian deaths.
The publication, citing an investigation by the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), said 22 people were killed in the attack – 19 civilians and three suspected members of Katiba Serma. Another eight civilians were injured.
The victims were all men between the ages of 23 and 71, mostly residents of the village.
Operation Barkhane was launched by the French military in 2014 to conduct operations against extremist armed groups in the Sahel region. Some 5,100 armed personnel are deployed in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, also known as the “G5 Sahel.”
The investigation made use of interviews, open source intelligence tools and techniques along with verified sources on the ground.
The unit also received the data, in consultation with Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), on 51 fatalities from civilian targeting incidents involving French forces in Mali between 2017 and 2021.
