Human Rights Watch on Thursday condemned "atrocities" committed against civilians by Mali's army, the Russian mercenary group Wagner, and Islamist armed groups since UN peacekeepers withdrew a year ago.
Mali's ruling junta pushed the United Nations stabilization mission (MINUSMA) to leave last December amid deteriorating relations and as the crisis-wracked country battles jihadist and separatist violence.
MINUSMA had previously maintained around 15,000 soldiers and police in the West African nation, and was in part tasked with protecting civilians and human rights.
Since May, the Malian army, supported by Wagner, has "deliberately killed at least 32 civilians", forcibly disappeared four others, and burned at least 100 homes in north and central Mali, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published Thursday.
HRW said the Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) had "summarily executed at least 47 civilians and displaced thousands of people since June".
The rights group said the number of civilians deaths given in its report could be underestimated by hundreds due to difficulties conducting research in central and northern Mali.
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