US sanctions Malian officials over Wagner ties

The United States has imposed sanctions against Mali’s defence minister and two military officials, accusing the trio of helping to facilitate the Russian mercenary group Wagner’s rise in the West African nation.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the sanctions targeted Malian Defence Minister Colonel Sadio Camara, Air Force Chief of Staff Colonel Alou Boi Diarra and Deputy Chief of Staff Lieutenant Colonel Adama Bagayoko.

Blinken accused the trio of working to “facilitate and expand Wagner’s presence in Mali since December 2021”, adding that civilian fatalities had surged by 278 percent since the Russian mercenaries deployed to the country.

“Many of those deaths were the result of operations conducted by the Malian Armed Forces alongside members of the Wagner Group,” Blinken said.

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In a separate statement, US Treasury Department official Brian Nelson also said the Malian officials had been “instrumental in facilitating the Wagner Group’s entrenchment in Mali over the past two years”.

“These officials have made their people vulnerable to the Wagner Group’s destabilizing activities and human rights abuses while paving the way for the exploitation of their country’s sovereign resources to the benefit of the Wagner Group’s operations in Ukraine,” Nelson said.

For years, the US and its allies have targeted the Wagner Group and those who support it with sanctions. Last week, the United Kingdom, for example, sanctioned 13 individuals with links to the Wagner Group in the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan.

Malian officials increasingly turned to Wagner following a military-led coup in May 2021, which saw military officer Assimi Goita seize power.

Mali’s transitional government did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency on Monday’s US sanctions.

In addition to its sanctions push, Washington has accused Wagner of helping to engineer the departure of the 13,000-person-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA.

MINUSMA is expected to completely cease operations by the end of the year.