DAKAR: The Russian paramilitary group Wagner has left Mali and its units there have been taken over by the Moscow-run Africa Corps, diplomatic and security sources told AFP on Sunday.
“Officially, Wagner is no longer present in Mali. But the Africa Corps is stepping up,” one diplomatic source in the Sahel region said.
A Telegram account affiliated with Wagner said: “Mission accomplished. PMC Wagner is going home.”
Mali’s ruling junta, which seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, broke off ties with former colonial power France and pivoted toward Russia for political and military support.
Wagner, Russia’s best-known mercenary group, was disbanded and restructured after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a mysterious plane crash in August 2023 following a short-lived rebellion against Moscow.
Mali has never officially admitted Wagner’s presence, insisting it only worked with Russian instructors.

Wagner yesterday or Africa Corps today, our point of contact remains the same, it is the central power in Russia, that is to say the Kremlin

Malian security source

France withdrew its 2,400 troops from Mali in 2022 after ties with the junta soured and anti-French sentiment surged among the public.
“The Kremlin remains in control,” the same diplomatic source added.
“Most of the Wagner personnel in Mali, who are originally from Russia, will be reintegrated into Africa Corps and remain in northern regional capitals and Bamako.”
The Africa Corps is another paramilitary group with links to the Kremlin and seen as the successor to the Wagner group. Like Wagner, its mercenaries are active supporting several African governments.
For over three years, Mali had relied on Wagner in its fight against jihadists who have killed thousands across the country.
“Wagner yesterday or Africa Corps today, our point of contact remains the same, it is the central power in Russia, that is to say the Kremlin,” a Malian security source said Sunday.
The paramilitary group’s brutal methods on the ground in Mali have been regularly denounced by human rights groups.
A UN report accused Mali’s army and foreign fighters of executing at least 500 people during a March 2022 anti-jihadist sweep in Moura — a claim denied by the junta.
Western governments believe the foreign fighters were Wagner mercenaries.
Last April, bodies were discovered near a Malian military camp, days after the army and Wagner paramilitaries arrested dozens of civilians, most from the Fulani community.
Wagner’s withdrawal comes amid what the Malian army calls a “resurgence““of jihadist attacks, including two assaults that killed dozens of soldiers and forced troops to abandon a key central base.
A European diplomatic source in the Sahel believes Africa Corps will probably do “much more training of Malian soldiers than Wagner did.”
“Although Wagner claims that its operations and support strengthened the Malian army, Africa Corps will need to continue training and support, especially after the recent wave of attacks against the FAMA (Malian Armed Forces),” said Beverly Ochieng, an analyst at the Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

LONDON: The mother of a British man charged over a protest against an Israeli weapons firm has voiced outrage over the expected 21-month imprisonment of her son before his trial, The Guardian reported.

William Plastow, a 34-year-old resident of Manchester, is accused of taking part in a Palestine Action demonstration against a factory in Bristol owned by Elbit Systems.

The protest, which took place in August last year, involved 17 others. The group has been dubbed the “Filton 18.”

Plastow, a script editor, has denied charges of criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary relating to the demonstration.

Six of the 18, including Plastow, who are all being held in prison, have been given a trial date of April next year.

Defendants should not spend more than six months in jail while awaiting trial, according to custody time limit guidelines.

By the time of Plastow’s expected trial, he will have served the equivalent of a sentence of more than five years, based on new sentencing rules that allow the release of convicted criminals who have served one-third of their sentences.

Jane Plastow, his mother, said the case might set a record for the longest time anyone has been held in prison awaiting trial on protest charges in Britain.

The 66-year-old, an academic, said: “It’s outrageous, it’s terrible. Will is a kind of glass-half-empty guy, so he tends toward (believing in) the worst possible outcome.

“Every day, which has become a kind of ritual, I have to say: ‘Yes, you are going to get out of there, this is not the end of your life. They are not going to be able to keep you in for years and years and years.’ Because you just obviously feel so helpless and hopeless locked up in that place.”

In a prison diary published in Inside Time, Plastow revealed he had suffered suicidal thoughts.

He was denied bail despite agreeing to a slew of measures designed to limit his behavior, including wearing an electronic tag, having his phone and passport confiscated, and submitting regular police reports on his activity.

The judge responsible for the decision said Plastow posed a risk of breaking the law again, his mother said.

“What you’re being required to prove is a negative — well, you can never prove the negative, can you?” she said. “You can’t prove that you’re not going to do anything.”

Plastow’s artner of a decade, Valentina Tschismarov, said: “I think the worst that I have personally seen him was when his bail application was denied, which obviously was really disheartening for all of us. Shortly afterward myself and his mum went to visit him together and I was very worried at that point because he was really shaken, just out of it.

“Even on the phone in the weeks after that, he just sounded very distant and kind of broken down. It seems incredibly disproportionate. I always imagined that there were these protections in place and you couldn’t just have somebody jailed without a conviction for these amounts of time.

“I think people are not really aware.”

The 18 protesters arrested at the Elbit facility last year were initially arrested under the Terrorism Act, meaning they could be held for 14 days without charge.

However, despite the Crown Prosecution Service saying the protest held a “terrorism connection,” none of the 18 have been charged with terror offenses.