Russian mercenaries have launched a series of bloody attacks on artisanal mines in the illegal border areas between Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) in an effort to plunder the region’s valuable gold trade, witnesses said. and experts.
Dozens of miners are believed to have been killed in at least three major attacks this year that allegedly involved mercenaries working for the Wagner Group, a private military company that has been linked to the Kremlin by Western officials. There are also reports of new mine attacks in at least six other places throughout the Central African Republic.
Witnesses interviewed in Sudan by the Guardian described “massacres” of fighters they identified as Wagner’s sweeping camps full of migrant miners and mining work between the northeastern city of Am Daga and the border over a six-week period. .
Fighters fired indiscriminately with automatic weapons, smashed equipment, destroyed buildings and stole motorcycles, they said. One described a mass grave containing more than 20 victims. Others spoke of hundreds dead or wounded.
The accounts have been corroborated by local civil society groups and international officials and are considered “credible” in Western European capitals, where security services are overseeing Wagner’s operations.
The three most important events took place on March 13, April 15 and May 24. Most of the victims were migrant workers from Sudan and Chad who worked in the gold mines, although some local civilians are also believed to have died.
Mohammed Zain Mohamed Wadi, 42, said he was attacked in an area called Jabal al-Nar, about 50 kilometers west of the Sudanese border, by Russians, some in armored vehicles, and soldiers from CAR in vans or motorcycles. Wadi said he helped bury 21 of the victims, all Sudanese. Six more people also died.
“I will never go back … in fact, I don’t think anyone stayed … The gold mines there have been occupied by the Russians,” he said.
Jamaa Mohamed al-Habou, 35, was among those attacked in the last week of May in the village of Sankillio, near Andaha. He said he and other miners were “chased by Wagner” and that many were killed during a day-long assault. The 35-year-old man fled into a nearby forest, abandoning a metal detector. Others left motorcycles and other vehicles behind, which were captured by the attackers. Members of armed groups opposing the government were also attacked, Habou said.
A third witness said as many as 70 people, including his brother and six relatives, were killed when Russians and Africans attacked the mine where he worked in March. “I had to run for seven days. I saw them coming … to kill and steal everyone so that their hands could reach,” said Adam Zakaria, 36, of Neyala in South Darfur.
He described the Wagner group as white people wearing gray military uniforms, traveling in vans, armored vehicles and helicopters. “When we first fled their attacks, we thought we were safe, but suddenly on our way they caught us and started beating us, and near Am Daga they set another trap where they killed 21 people. We had to bury them in a big grave, “Zakaria said.
Since arriving in the Central African Republic four years ago to defend the government against the rebels, the Wagner Group has made efforts to establish control over the flow of gold and diamonds. Analysts believe that the group was initially promised gold and other mining concessions instead of cash payments for its services.
These concessions have gained in importance as the ruble has come under pressure since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Precious metals, especially gold, could help Vladimir Putin’s regime survive the economic impact of sanctions.
Analysts said the recent attacks looked more like looting raids than efforts to secure and extract resources for months or years. “There are periodic reports of attackers arriving by helicopter, killing artisanal gold diggers and rebels … [then] grabbing everything they can and then leaving. Sometimes they come back a month later and do the same. It has nothing to do with securing a mining site, “said Pauline Bax, deputy director of Africa for the International Crisis Group.
Wagner has also been blamed for attacks on gold miners elsewhere in the RCA, and there have been reports of recent incursions across the porous RCA-Sudan border as fighters identified as Wagner chases the fleeing miners.
Wagner has been active in a dozen African countries and has been repeatedly accused of human rights violations on the continent. Western officials allege that the Kremlin is using Wagner to advance Russian economic and political interests throughout Africa and elsewhere.
Sorcha MacLeod, chair of the UN working group on the use of mercenaries, said the presence of groups such as Wagner prolonged conflicts, led to higher levels of violence and often led to widespread human rights abuses. “Wagner is doubling in the Sahel and will not leave soon,” he said.
In a May report, Human Rights Watch said RCA forces that witnesses identified as Russians appeared to have beaten, tortured and killed civilians there since 2019. It said Russia-linked forces in the RCA did not they wore a uniform designated with official insignia or other Distinctive features.
On April 15, the UN announced that it would investigate the circumstances in which at least 10 people were killed in the northeast of the CAR, with some initial reports alleging that Russian forces may have been involved.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and close ally of Putin, has been accused by the US, EU and others of funding Wagner. The Guardian approached Prigozhin to seek his reaction to the evidence involving Wagner’s fighters in the massacres in Mali earlier this year. In response, he said he had “repeatedly said that the Wagner Group did not exist” and that it had “nothing to do with it,” adding that “an endangered Western civilization” would be defeated by Russia.
Former Central African Prime Minister Henri-Marie Dondra has said there is no contract between his country and “a Russian private security company … just a military co-operation agreement with Russia.”
A leaked EU report in November 2021 on CAR said: “Today, most [national army] The units operate under the direct command or supervision of the WG [Wagner Group] mercenaries ”.
CAR is one of the poorest countries in the world and is facing economic collapse. About 1,200 Wagner fighters are believed to be deployed.