Russia-linked Wagner Group fuelling crimes in West Africa

A video grab of a dead body being chopped up. Pic/AFP

The International Criminal Court has been asked to review a confidential legal report asserting that the Russia-linked Wagner Group has committed war crimes by spreading images of apparent atrocities in West Africa on social media, including ones alluding to cannibalism.

In the videos, men in military uniform are shown butchering corpses of what appear to be civilians with machetes, hacking out organs and posing with severed limbs. One fighter says he is about to eat someone's liver. Another says he is trying to remove their heart.

Violence in the Sahel, an arid belt of land south of the Sahara Desert, has reached record levels as military governments battle extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

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