Ayourou, Niger – It was only a few minutes earlier than 7 o’clock on a Friday night in early June when Kani* and 10 others fleeing violence in northeastern Mali arrived at a checkpoint in Labbezanga, near the border with Niger.
Six armed males, three of them sporting army fatigues, on the checkpoint stopped the women and men who had begun their journey from their village on foot the day prior to this.
“They [the gunmen] separated the lads from the ladies,” Kani, 17, stated. “Then three of them ordered all of the 4 women who made the journey to maneuver right into a small tent [the armed men had erected near the checkpoint].
“They took turns to rape us at gunpoint,” stated Kani, who spoke to Al Jazeera from the house of an area legumes farmer within the Nigerien border city of Ayourou, a city on the border with Mali, the place many Malian refugees have settled in recent times and the place she has been residing for the previous a number of weeks since crossing into Niger.
Wearing a brown headband and vibrant gown, {the teenager} appeared frightened and depressed, her head bowed, as she spoke.
Because the ordeal, she stated, she has develop into terrified each time she sees a person with a gun.
“Policemen and troopers scare me as a result of they remind me of the individuals who raped me.”
The rape victims had been all younger women who stated they begged their attackers to not hurt them as a result of they had been exhausted and hungry following the lengthy journey that they had made with out meals and sufficient water.
“The whole lot we stated fell on deaf ears,” Coumba*, one other 17-year-old lady who was additionally raped, instructed Al Jazeera. “Sooner or later, they began to beat us up with their weapons and whips simply to ensure we stopped speaking.”
Coumba, who was wearing a black headband and a robe with blue, brown and white colors, was sombre all through her interview with Al Jazeera. The considered the rape incident terrifies her, she stated.
“Every time I bear in mind what occurred to me on the border, I develop into very afraid,” {the teenager} stated. Like Kani, she has been residing on the house of the legume farmer in Ayourou since arriving in Niger.
The pair had fled collectively from Ouattagouna in japanese Mali following a sequence of assaults in town by armed teams from the so-called Islamic State within the Larger Sahara (ISGS).
Fleeing the violence, greater than 10,000 Malians have taken refuge in Ayourou, an previous city which stands on an eponymous island within the river Niger. Some stay in tents constructed for refugees on dry and dusty land simply exterior the city, whereas others have discovered refuge with native households contained in the city, the place locals principally do farming and promote foodstuffs and livestock out there.
When Kani and Coumba first arrived in Ayourou, they spent a number of days within the refugee settlement earlier than going into the center of city looking for work and assembly the legume farmer who provided them work on his farm and was completely satisfied to accommodate them.
However, regardless of settling in shortly of their new house, they now consider making the journey to Niger was a mistake.
“We didn’t know we had been going to face one other hell attempting to go away Mali,” stated Coumba. “If we knew anybody would try to rape us, we’d have left Ouattagouna for one more neighborhood in Mali.”
Whereas the armed males, a few of whom Kani and Coumba suspect had been Malian troopers due to the army camouflage shirts they had been sporting, sexually abused the ladies, the lads they had been travelling with had been ordered to lie on their stomachs with their foreheads touching the bottom.
“We may hear the ladies screaming and begging the [armed men] to allow them to go,” stated 40-year-old Seydou Camara, one of many males who made the journey from Ouattagouna and now lives within the refugee settlement in Ayourou. “We couldn’t do something as a result of the lads had been armed and had been going to shoot us if we dared attempt to rescue the ladies.”
The victims estimate that the abuse lasted for about an hour. Every of the three armed males that escorted the ladies to the tent, they stated, raped all 4 of them.
“They instructed us that the one approach we may cross into Niger was if we had intercourse with them and that we couldn’t say no to them,” stated Coumba. “They solely let everybody go after that they had raped the ladies and seized cash from the lads who had money of their pockets.”
Al Jazeera contacted the Malian authorities in regards to the allegations in opposition to Malian troopers on July 17, after which once more on July 22, however obtained no response.
‘They raped nearly each girl there’
It was the second time each Kani and Coumba, who lived in the identical compound in Ouattagouna, had suffered sexual violence in their very own nation.
In March 2023, across the time that Human Rights Watch reported armed teams primarily based within the north of Mali had been finishing up widespread killings, rapes and lootings in villages within the northeast of the nation, fighters stormed the road the place the ladies lived, burned down some homes, seized numerous males and sexually abused ladies, together with the 2 youngsters.
“They [the fighters] got here into our compound very late at evening and raped nearly each girl there,” Kani, whose father and solely brother had been kidnapped by the fighters that evening and hasn’t heard from them since, stated. “About 10 of us had been raped at gunpoint by 5 males.”
Assaults on communities are widespread in Mali, a restive West African nation that has suffered years of instability. The nation descended into battle in 2012 when native Tuareg separatists supported by fighters rebelled within the north.
A 12 months later, former coloniser France intervened, sending a 1,700-strong drive to help Malian forces in crushing them, however the fighters have since regrouped and unfold to another elements of the Sahel area, particularly to Burkina Faso and Niger, launching assaults on the Malian army and United Nations peacekeepers and making certain that elements of the area stay insecure and ungovernable.
In 2020, then-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was compelled out of workplace in a coup led by Assimi Goita, a military colonel who later took full management of the federal government when he was sworn in as army president in June 2021.
Rising acrimony between Western powers, who voiced disapproval of the coup, and the army leaders pushed France overseas. The Malian army authorities, in a bid to defeat separatist rebels and fighters within the north developed ties with Russia’s army and its Wagner Group of mercenaries, however the alliance has struggled to place an finish to insurgent actions which seem to have escalated, particularly because the nation ordered the UN peacekeeping mission often known as the Multidimensional Built-in Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and its 15,000 worldwide troopers to depart final 12 months.
“Since UN peacekeepers left final 12 months, Islamist militants have been attacking communities within the northeast regularly,” Adama Traore, a 45-year-old farmer who fled from Ouattagouna to Ayourou final August, instructed Al Jazeera.
In Might, fighters returned to the compound the place Kani and Coumba lived, burned the homes there and kidnapped some males. The 2 women had been amongst numerous individuals who escaped unharmed. They spent days residing in a abandoned constructing simply exterior Ouattagouna earlier than they started their journey in the direction of Niger.
“We left our properties with solely the garments we had been sporting, as we had no time to choose up any of our belongings,” stated Coumba, who left her mother and father and two siblings behind and has no concept whether or not they’re nonetheless alive. “If we hadn’t run away, we might have been killed.”
The journey to Niger was an extended and tough one for Kani and Coumba. After 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 sick however managed to discover a place to remain in a settlement for refugees.
The teenage women aren’t the one ones from Ouattagouna who’ve reported being raped by armed males, suspected to be troopers, whereas attempting to cross into Niger from Mali.
Per week after Kani and Coumba arrived in Ayourou, Heita*, a 45-year-old girl, who beforehand bought foodstuffs in a market in Ouattagouna, stated she and two different ladies had been raped at gunpoint by males in army uniform on the similar checkpoint close to the border with Niger whereas they had been attempting to flee Mali.
Heita had left Ouattagouna to flee the frequent assaults by armed teams within the city. In one in all these assaults greater than two years in the past, her husband and two sons had been killed by fighters who raped her within the course of.
“It was already darkish after we arrived on the checkpoint and the 4 males in army uniform we met there compelled us right into a small tent the place they took turns to rape us,” Heita instructed Al Jazeera. “We initially refused to allow them to have their approach however after they began hitting us with their weapons, we had no selection however to submit.”
As was the case with Kani and Coumba, Heita and the opposite travelling ladies had been solely allowed to proceed their journey to Niger after their rapists had been finished abusing them. “The expertise was one of many worst in my life,” stated Heita, who ultimately arrived at Ayourou with the opposite victims a day after the incident occurred.
‘Raped by Russians’
Reports of rape by rebels and different fighters in Mali have 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 enormously added to incidents of sexual violence particularly within the final three years.
Frequent raids by Malian troopers and Russian paramilitaries have made native individuals extra afraid and anxious.
“If it isn’t militants attacking properties and killing individuals, it’s white troopers and the military torturing and sexually abusing villagers,” stated Heita, who – like many locals in Mali – refers to Russian paramilitaries as “white troopers”. “Residing in Mali has develop into so harmful.”
“Malian and Russian troopers who declare to be preventing these militants have been arresting and torturing villagers who they accuse of working for the terrorists,” Traore defined.
Final 12 months, UN experts said that, since 2021, they’ve obtained persistent and alarming accounts of human rights abuses that embody rape and sexual violence perpetrated by Malian armed forces and Russian paramilitaries, including that “victims of the so-called Wagner Group face many challenges in accessing justice and treatment for the human rights abuses, together with sexual violence, and associated crimes dedicated in opposition to them, significantly in mild of the secrecy and opacity surrounding Wagner’s actions in Mali”.
Whereas Heita wasn’t sexually abused by Russian paramilitaries throughout her keep in Ouattagouna, she stated some ladies she knew again house had instructed her that they had beforehand been raped by the Russians in Ansongo, a city positioned about 77km (48 miles) north of Ouattagouna.
“Two merchants, who later moved to Ouattagouna, instructed me white troopers raped them of their compound after arresting their husbands who they accused of working with militants,” stated Heita. “The ladies had been compelled to go away Ansongo with their kids as a result of they feared for his or her security.”
Malian authorities officers and Wagner didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s requests for remark.
Because the atrocities in Mali proceed, those that have survived the abuse nonetheless stay with the torture.
“At any time when I see a person with a gun, I concern that he’s going to rape me,” stated Kani, who – like Coumba and Heita – hasn’t sought medical examination in Ayourou due to concern of stigmatisation.
“I simply can’t recover from the abuses I confronted in Mali.”
*Names have been modified to guard anonymity.