The transitional government of Mali has condemned as "fictitious" and "biased" a UN report that says the army and foreign fighters executed no fewer than 500 people in the town of Moura during the 2022 anti-Jihadist operation.
"No civilian from Moura lost their life during the military operation," said a statement read out on state television by government spokesman Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga. "There were only terrorist fighters among the dead."
Condemning what it termed "a biased report based on a fictitious narrative," the government also voiced surprise that UN investigators used satellites over Moura to collect information without government authorization.
The victims were allegedly "executed by the FAMa (Malian Armed Forces) and the foreign military," the report, published after a lengthy investigation by the human rights division of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, said.
Against the backdrop of continuing protests demanding that MINUSMA leave the country, with some protesters reportedly accusing the mission of undermining country's sovereignty, in early May, Germany started to withdraw troops from Mali, aiming to complete the process by May next year.
Another Western country that decided to pull its military out of an African state was France. Its troops left Mali on 15 August 2022, after the local government announced the termination of bilateral defense agreements.
Earlier, Mali's top officials, including its Foreign Minister, Abdoulaye Diop, accused the European country of supporting terrorist groups inside the African country.