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In a single day, buildings were burned to the ground, motorcycles were destroyed, and people were killed and buried in the city of Nia Ouro, located in central Mali. Our team established what happened in this village on January 4, 2022, using verified video, satellite imagery, and the testimony of our observer, who claims that the Malian Army was responsible for the deaths and destruction.
The first report of this attack came in the form of a video posted to Twitter by a user on January 9. It shows a destroyed barn, next to the burnt hull of a cart. The caption reads: “Nia Ouro’s face after the passage of the FAMa (the Armed Forces of Mali)”.
Another social media user shared additional videos with our team, explaining that these showed Nia Ouro after the attack. The nine videos he sent us showed charred motorcycles and cars, as well as barns burned to the ground.
Footage also shows locals digging up two freshly buried bodies, one of whom has his hands tied behind his back. There are several landmarks that appear in various videos, indicating that they were filmed in the same location.
Slideshow of screenshots from two different videos, pointing out the same elements appearing in both.
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French media outlets RFI and Libération reported that Malian soldiers were suspected of carrying out an attack in Nia Ouro on January 4, 2022. RFI published the news on January 7 and Libération the following day.
On the afternoon of January 4, the Malian NGO Kisal, which focuses on the protection and development of human rights in the Sahel, posted a message about the attack on Facebook:
“This Tuesday, January 4, 2022, coinciding with the weekly Sofara market, individuals dressed in military uniforms – who said they were Malian soldiers stationed in the Sofara camp – broke into the town of Nia Ouro, the men were systematically tied up and beaten. according to reports from residents and several motorcycles were burned.
Facebook post by the NGO Kisal, describing the events of January 4, 2022.
Our team got in touch with a Belgian Human Rights worker from an organization active in the region. He told our team that he recognized a man in one of the videos. He said that he was from Nia Ouro and acted as her guide during one of her trips there. He also says that he received confirmation that the videos were indeed filmed at Nia Ouro.
Our team also spoke with a man from Nia Ouro who witnessed part of the attack. Diallo (not his real name) is a young man who has lived his entire life in the village. Late in the afternoon of January 3, 2022, he and his friend saw some vehicles heading into town.
“We saw a lot of military vehicles parked on the outskirts of the village, then we saw men leaving. They were dressed as Malian soldiers. They spent the night outside Nia Ouro.
The next day, around 9 am, I headed to the Sofara market (10 km west of Nia Ouro). I was with about a dozen people. Almost as soon as we left the village, the men dressed as We were stopped by Malian soldiers. There were about a dozen of us and they made us sit down. They looked at our NINA cards (a Malian identity card) and then threw them on the ground. Thank God they let me go, I still have no idea why.
When I returned from the Sofara market, around 1 pm, there were many burnt houses and barns. The food had also been stolen. Of the eight people who had been arrested earlier in the day, four were found dead and four are still missing. We found all four bodies. Each had their hands tied behind their backs and a gunshot wound to the head.”
To verify the videos, we asked our Observer to send us another video of the destruction at Nia Ouro. We were able to identify landmarks and other clues present in the two videos.
Using the video sent to us by our Observer, we were able to determine the exact location in Nia Ouro where the buildings were burned.
The destruction perpetrated by men wearing the uniforms of Malian soldiers appears in these satellite images. NASA’s FIRMS system, which detects fires by looking at satellite imagery, detected two fires at Nia Ouro on January 4, 2022. The system did not detect any fires for seven days before or after.
According to Boubakar Ba, a researcher at a research center called the Center for Analysis on Governance and Security in the Sahel, villagers living in Nia Ouro, most of whom are from the Fulani ethnic group, are sometimes caught in the middle of tensions. growing.
“They are caught between multiple ‘fires’: the jihadists, the FAMa (Malian army) and local militias with close ties to the government who sometimes work with the FAMa,” he explained.
Our Nia Ouro watcher says he has no idea why the men dressed as Malian soldiers did this:
“Among the people killed were two shepherds, a market vendor and a man from the neighboring village. We don’t know why they did that. I’m scared. Everyone here is afraid. Some people have fled the town since the January 4 attack. But I don’t want to leave, I have family that lives here”.
A statement was released by the Malian Army spokesman the day after the attack on Nia Ouro, saying: “On January 4, 2022, the FAMa unit foiled another coordinated terrorist action in the Nia Ouro sector, Sofara region. Fifteen Armed motorcyclists were seen coming from the Sama forest and were intercepted and neutralized.”
The Major General of the Malian Army did not respond to our requests for interviews, communicated both in writing and by voicemail.