A Russian mercenary group says one of its commanders was killed in Mali after a rebel attack during a sandstorm.
The West African country’s military regime turned to the notorious Wagner group in 2021 for support in its fight against jihadist and separatist forces.
On Monday, the Russian force – now renamed a group called Africa Corps – said it had joined the Malian army in “fierce battles” against separatist rebels and jihadists last week.
However, the separatists launched a major attack, killing between 20 and 50 mercenaries, sources close to Africa Corps told the BBC.
Similarly, several Russian military bloggers reported that at least 20 people were killed in an ambush near the northeastern town of Tinzaouaten.
In an official statement posted on Telegram, the Russian mercenary group did not specify how many of its soldiers had died, but confirmed that it had suffered “losses.” Among them was a commander, Sergei Shevchenko, who died in action.
The mercenaries initially “killed most of the Islamists and forced the rest to flee,” the statement said.
“However, [an] “The sandstorm then allowed the extremists to regroup and increase their numbers to 1,000,” the report added.
The Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD), a separatist group dominated by the Tuareg ethnic group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
“On Saturday, our forces dealt a decisive blow to the enemy,” AFP quoted a CSP-PSD spokesman as saying.
The spokesman added that prisoners had been arrested and “a large amount of equipment and weapons were damaged or seized”.
The militant group shared a video showing several white men in military uniforms lying motionless on a sandy plain.
Another photo shows a group of mostly black men blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs.
The BBC has not yet been able to confirm the authenticity of these videos.
Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, also claimed sole responsibility for the attack.
Islamist militants say they have killed 50 Russian mercenaries in a “complex ambush”.
More than a decade ago, Mali’s central government lost control of much of the north following a Tuareg rebellion, sparked by demands for a separate state.
The country’s security was then further complicated by the involvement of Islamist militants in the conflict.
When it seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, the military cited the government’s failure to address the unrest.
The new military government has severed Mali’s longstanding alliance with former colonial power France and turned to Russia to quell the unrest.
But the Wagner mercenary group was effectively disbanded after the rebellion of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last year, leading to its replacement in West Africa by the Afrika Korps.
