As aid groups bemoan the suffering of people in embattled Mali, the International Criminal Court said it launched an investigation Wednesday of alleged crimes against humanity committed by armed groups in the country.
The suspected crimes include murder, rape, torture and the pillaging of Gao and Timbuktu.
Since the armed conflict erupted a year ago, “different armed groups have caused havoc and human suffering through a range of alleged acts of extreme violence,” prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said. Such abuses “have deeply shocked the conscience of humanity.”
French troops are facing off against Islamic militants in Mali, aiming to halt extremists who overtook a Tuareg rebellion last year to impose harsh religious law in the north. The Islamists had gained ground last week in an embarrassing blow to Malian forces that led the country to request outside help.
As fighting flared up this week, the United Nations and aid agencies warned that the plight of ordinary Malians will probably worsen. People in northern Mali have suffered throughout the crisis, enduring or fleeing the severe rule of militants who have chopped off hands of thieves and stoned alleged adulterers.
Bensouda's office laid out a long list of alleged abuses Wednesday, including rebels shooting and disemboweling Malian soldiers and dozens of cases of rape or attempted rape after the takeover of the north. She also cited crimes allegedly committed by the Malian army, including the reported shooting of 16 unarmed Muslim preachers in September.
“There is still turmoil in north Mali and populations there continue to be at risk of yet more violence and suffering,” Bensouda said.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced over the last year; more than 30,000 others abandoned their homes during the weekend as French airstrikes began, some seeking refuge in southern stretches of Mali, others crossing the border to Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.
The recent developments are expected to worsen the grave needs in the region: Chronic malnutrition will only be exacerbated by the violence and increased insecurity, as aid agencies are hampered from reaching those in need, the U.N. World Food Program said Tuesday.
The escalation of the fighting has also stirred up new alarm about the militants using child soldiers, a phenomenon earlier reported by human rights groups. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that children as young as 12 have been involved in the recent clashes, putting them directly in the line of fire. Bensouda said in her report Wednesday that her office would seek more information on the allegations.
Mali referred the alleged crimes to the International Criminal Court in July, saying the takeover of the north had incapacitated its courts there. The international tribunal, founded more than a decade ago, is meant to be a court of last resort for countries that can't or don't prosecute the perpetrators of war crimes and other atrocities.
“The ICC was created for this type of situation,” said Moctar Mariko, president of the Malian human rights organization AMDH, in a statement Wednesday. “And it’s crucial that it intervenes and helps restore the rule of law, which has been trampled on.”
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