(Johannesburg) – Renewed abuses by ethnic Tuareg rebels and Malian army soldiers are a step backward for human rights protection in northern Mali, Human Rights Watch said today. On June 5, 2013, army forces began a military offensive to recapture the Kidal region.
On June 1 and 2, forces of the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), which still controls parts of the Kidal region, arbitrarily detained about 100 people, most of them darker-skinned men from non-Tuareg ethnic groups. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the MNLA robbed, threatened, and, in numerous cases, severely beat the men.
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