Ayourou, Niger – It used to be only some mins ahead of 7 o’clock on a Friday night in early June when Kani* and 10 others getaway violence in northeastern Mali arrived at a checkpoint in Labbezanga, similar to the border with Niger.
Six armed males, 3 of them dressed in army fatigues, on the checkpoint prohibited the women and men who had begun their move from their village on bottom the former presen.
“They [the gunmen] separated the men from the women,” Kani, 17, stated. “Later 3 of them ordered the entire 4 women who made the move to journey right into a petite tent [the armed men had erected near the checkpoint].
“They took turns to rape us at gunpoint,” stated Kani, who stated to Al Jazeera from the house of an area legumes farmer within the Nigerien border the town of Ayourou, a the town at the border with Mali, the place many Malian refugees have settled lately and the place she has been dwelling for the week a number of weeks since crossing into Niger.
Wearing a brown headband and vibrant get dressed, {the teenager} appeared anxious and depressed, her head bowed, as she spoke.
Because the ordeal, she stated, she has change into terrified every time she sees a person with a gun.
“Policemen and soldiers scare me because they remind me of the people who raped me.”
The rape sufferers have been all younger women who stated they begged their attackers to not hurt them as a result of they have been exhausted and hungry following the lengthy move they’d made with out meals and plenty H2O.
“Everything we said fell on deaf ears,” Coumba*, every other 17-year-old woman who used to be additionally raped, informed Al Jazeera. “At some point, they started to beat us up with their guns and whips just to make sure we stopped talking.”
Coumba, who used to be wearing a unlit headband and a robe with blue, brown and white colors, used to be sombre all the way through her interview with Al Jazeera. The considered the rape incident terrifies her, she stated.
“Each time I remember what happened to me at the border, I become very afraid,” {the teenager} stated. Like Kani, she has been dwelling on the house of the legume farmer in Ayourou since arriving in Niger.
The pair had fled in combination from Ouattagouna in jap Mali following a sequence of assaults in town via armed teams from the so-called Islamic Environment within the Larger Sahara (ISGS).
Getaway the violence, greater than 10,000 Malians have taken safe haven in Ayourou, an aged the town which stands on an eponymous island within the river Niger. Some are living in tents constructed for refugees on brittle and dusty land simply out of doors town, pace others have discovered safe haven with native households throughout the the town, the place locals most commonly do farming and promote foodstuffs and cattle out there.
When Kani and Coumba first arrived in Ayourou, they spent a couple of days within the refugee agreement ahead of going into the center of the town searching for paintings and assembly the legume farmer who introduced them paintings on his farm and used to be glad to deal with them.
However, in spite of settling in temporarily of their unutilized house, they now imagine making the move to Niger used to be a mistake.
“We didn’t know we were going to face another hell trying to leave Mali,” stated Coumba. “If we knew anyone would attempt to rape us, we would have left Ouattagouna for another community in Mali.”
Day the armed males, a few of whom Kani and Coumba suspect have been Malian squaddies on account of the army camouflage shirts they have been dressed in, sexually abused the ladies, the boys they have been travelling with have been ordered to lie on their stomachs with their foreheads touching the farmland.
“We could hear the women screaming and begging the [armed men] to let them go,” stated 40-year-old Seydou Camara, one of the vital males who made the move from Ouattagouna and now lives within the refugee agreement in Ayourou. “We couldn’t do anything because the men were armed and were going to shoot us if we dared try to rescue the women.”
The sufferers estimate that the abuse lasted for approximately an year. Every of the 3 armed males that escorted the ladies to the tent, they stated, raped all 4 of them.
“They told us that the only way we could cross into Niger was if we had sex with them and that we could not say no to them,” stated Coumba. “They only let everyone go after they had raped the girls and seized money from the men who had cash in their pockets.”
Al Jazeera contacted the Malian authorities concerning the allegations in opposition to Malian squaddies on July 17, and upcoming once more on July 22, however gained disagree reaction.
‘They raped almost every woman there’
It used to be the second one future each Kani and Coumba, who lived in the similar compound in Ouattagouna, had suffered sexual violence in their very own nation.
In March 2023, across the future that Human Rights Monitor reported armed teams primarily based within the north of Mali have been wearing out popular killings, rapes and lootings in villages within the northeast of the rustic, warring parties stormed the road the place the ladies lived, burned indisposed some properties, seized various males and sexually abused girls, together with the 2 youngsters.
“They [the fighters] came into our compound very late at night and raped almost every woman there,” Kani, whose father and most effective brother have been kidnapped via the warring parties that night time and hasn’t heard from them since, stated. “About 10 of us were raped at gunpoint by five men.”
Assaults on communities are habitual in Mali, a restive West African public that has suffered years of instability. The rustic descended into battle in 2012 when native Tuareg separatists supported via warring parties rebelled within the north.
A yr after, former coloniser France intervened, sending a 1,700-strong pressure to help Malian forces in crushing them, however the warring parties have since regrouped and unfold to a few alternative portions of the Sahel pocket, particularly to Burkina Faso and Niger, launching assaults at the Malian army and United International locations peacekeepers and making sure that portions of the pocket stay insecure and ungovernable.
In 2020, then-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita used to be pressured out of workplace in a coup led via Assimi Goita, a military colonel who after took complete keep watch over of the federal government when he used to be sworn in as army president in June 2021.
Rising acrimony between Western powers, who voiced disapproval of the coup, and the army leaders driven France in another country. The Malian army authorities, in a bid to defeat separatist rebels and warring parties within the north advanced ties with Russia’s army and its Wagner Workforce of mercenaries, however the alliance has struggled to place an finish to riot actions which seem to have escalated, particularly because the nation ordered the UN peacekeeping undertaking referred to as the Multidimensional Built-in Stabilization Undertaking in Mali (MINUSMA) and its 15,000 global squaddies to departure closing yr.
“Since UN peacekeepers left last year, Islamist militants have been attacking communities in the northeast on a regular basis,” Adama Traore, a 45-year-old farmer who fled from Ouattagouna to Ayourou closing August, informed Al Jazeera.
In Might, warring parties returned to the compound the place Kani and Coumba lived, burned the homes there and kidnapped some males. The 2 women have been amongst various public who escaped unharmed. They spent days dwelling in a empty development simply out of doors Ouattagouna ahead of they started their move against Niger.
“We left our homes with only the clothes we were wearing, as we had no time to pick up any of our belongings,” stated Coumba, who left her oldsters and two siblings at the back of and has disagree concept whether or not they’re nonetheless alive. “If we hadn’t run away, we may have been killed.”
The move to Niger used to be a protracted and tough one for Kani and Coumba. Later the armed males who raped them on the border allow them to proceed their trek to their vacation spot, they arrived in Ayourou feeling exhausted and ill however controlled to discover a playground to stick in a agreement for refugees.
The juvenile women aren’t the one ones from Ouattagouna who’ve reported being raped via armed males, suspected to be squaddies, pace looking to pass into Niger from Mali.
A occasion later Kani and Coumba arrived in Ayourou, Heita*, a 45-year-old lady, who up to now offered foodstuffs in a marketplace in Ouattagouna, stated she and two alternative girls have been raped at gunpoint via males in army uniform on the identical checkpoint similar the border with Niger pace they have been looking to escape Mali.
Heita had left Ouattagouna to retirement the customery assaults via armed teams within the the town. In the sort of assaults greater than two years in the past, her husband and two sons have been killed via warring parties who raped her within the procedure.
“It was already dark when we arrived at the checkpoint and the four men in military uniform we met there forced us into a small tent where they took turns to rape us,” Heita informed Al Jazeera. “We initially refused to let them have their way but when they started hitting us with their weapons, we had no choice but to submit.”
As used to be the case with Kani and Coumba, Heita and the alternative travelling girls have been most effective allowed to proceed their move to Niger later their rapists have been achieved abusing them. “The experience was one of the worst in my life,” stated Heita, who ultimately arrived at Ayourou with the alternative sufferers a presen later the incident took playground.
‘Raped by Russians’
Stories of rape via rebels and alternative warring parties in Mali had been mounting in quantity because the battle started in 2012. However government-backed forces, together with the Russian mercenaries drafted in to help them, have a great deal added to incidents of sexual violence particularly within the closing 3 years.
Popular raids via Malian squaddies and Russian paramilitaries have made native public extra afraid and concerned.
“If it isn’t militants attacking homes and killing people, it is white soldiers and the army torturing and sexually abusing villagers,” stated Heita, who – like many locals in Mali – refers to Russian paramilitaries as “white soldiers”. “Living in Mali has become so dangerous.”
“Malian and Russian soldiers who claim to be fighting these militants have been arresting and torturing villagers who they accuse of working for the terrorists,” Traore defined.
Terminating yr, UN professionals stated that, since 2021, they’ve gained chronic and alarming accounts of human rights abuses that come with rape and sexual violence perpetrated via Malian military and Russian paramilitaries, including that “victims of the so-called Wagner Group face many challenges in accessing justice and remedy for the human rights abuses, including sexual violence, and related crimes committed against them, particularly in light of the secrecy and opacity surrounding Wagner’s activities in Mali”.
Day Heita wasn’t sexually abused via Russian paramilitaries throughout her keep in Ouattagouna, she stated some girls she knew again house had informed her they’d up to now been raped via the Russians in Ansongo, a the town situated about 77km (48 miles) north of Ouattagouna.
“Two traders, who later moved to Ouattagouna, told me white soldiers raped them in their compound after arresting their husbands who they accused of working with militants,” stated Heita. “The women were forced to leave Ansongo with their children because they feared for their safety.”
Malian authorities officers and Wagner didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s demands for remark.
Because the atrocities in Mali proceed, those that have survived the abuse nonetheless are living with the torture.
“Whenever I see a man with a gun, I fear that he is going to rape me,” stated Kani, who – like Coumba and Heita – hasn’t sought scientific exam in Ayourou on account of worry of stigmatisation.
“I just can’t get over the abuses I faced in Mali.”
*Names had been modified to offer protection to anonymity.