Malian authorities and the United Nations have disagreed over the killing of Jihadist fighters in the country.
While the army says its troops killed over 200 jihadists in military operations in the centre of the Sahel state, the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the country has countered the claims, saying it has heard reports of civilian deaths, raising human rights concerns.
The Malian Army on Saturday, said the military operations which took place in the Moura region in central Mali from March 23 to 31, saw 203 jihadists killed while 51 were arrested and large quantities of weapons seized.
But the UN, relying on numerous social media reports in Mali during the week, alleged that dozens of the people killed in the operations included civilians
“The Mali military issued a statement after rumours on social media that 300 civilians were killed in the village of Moura which they said was a ‘terrorist fiefdom’. They said they neutralised over 300 ‘terrorists’,” a local journalist reported, which corroborated the UN’s stance.
“The Malian state believes the area is controlled by groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS). So there has been a push to regain control of the area.
“But the challenge is that no one really knows what’s happening; there’s little access to the area where these operations are taking place. A number of foreign journalists have been thrown out of the country for reporting what’s going on in Mali,” he added.
Mali has been battling for years to push out different rebel groups and to contain an armed uprising that emerged in 2012, to some degrees of success but the threat has continued to stay with the impoverished nation.
A large part of the country are controlled by different rebel groups and militias, with thousands of soldiers and civilians killed in years of conflict.