© Photograph: Thibault Camus/APMalian soldiers on manoeuvres. Asked if troops were guilty of war crimes, justice minister Malick Coulibaly said: ‘No army is perfect.’
Residents of Mopti, in the centre of the country, told the Observer of arrests, interrogations and the torture of innocents by the Malian army of those mistakenly suspected of involvement in rebel activity. "One day my son just disappeared," said a woman from the Fulani ethnic group, who asked not to be named. "We looked for him there for two or three days, but couldn't find him. Then some people told us that on the day he left, the army shot two people and put them in a pit inside the military base."
The victim's cousin, who also asked to remain anonymous for fears of reprisals, said: "We are Fulani people, the soldiers can tell from our dress that we come from the north.
"Because of that, the army suspects us - if we look like Fulani and don't have an identity card, they kill us. But many people are born in the small villages and it's very difficult to have identification.
"We are all afraid," the cousin continued. "There are some households where Fulanis or others who are fair-skinned don't go out any more. We have stopped wearing our traditional clothes - we are being forced to abandon our culture, and to stay indoors."
