Wagner fighters captured in Mali released: sources

BAMAKO: Two fighters for former Russian paramilitary group Wagner who were captured in Mali two years ago during clashes with terrorist-allied Tuareg rebels have been released, sources told AFP Saturday.
The two men were taken prisoner in July 2024 in a battle for the northern town of Tinzaouatene between Malian government forces — backed by Wagner fighters — and an ethnic-Tuareg separatist movement allied with the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).
The Malian army and Wagner — which has since been replaced by Russia’s Africa Corps paramilitary group — admitted sustaining heavy losses in the battle.
The captured men were released Thursday, according to security and diplomatic sources.
“They were being held in northern Mali and left Thursday for Libya, where they have now arrived,” a security source told AFP.
Another security source said the released followed “the involvement of various parties, including countries on friendly terms with the Sahel region’s junta governments.”
Mali has been ruled by a junta since successive coups in 2020 and 2021.
The junta has struggled to deliver on a pledge to stop terrorist and separatist violence that has dogged the west African country for more than a decade.
To secure the release, “several rounds of negotiations were held in Libya between the FLA (the Tuareg-separatist Azawad Liberation Front) and the Russian side over the past three months, with Algeria following the entire process,” said a regional diplomatic source.
Africa Corps announced the release Friday, saying the two Russian nationals had been held for more than two years by a “terrorist coalition.”
It said the Russian military had been key in reaching a deal, along with Saddam Haftar, son of the head of the Libyan National Army (LNA), which controls Libya’s east.