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Grainy camera footage showed them lying still in the blistering heat of the desert – six or seven bodies, maybe more. Wet, red spots in the sand and belongings scattered across the landscape were signs of what had happened. As the camera shifted back and forth, it caught a dirtied pair of jeans in the sand, curiously without its owner.
It was February in northern Mali. The group lying dead in the sand were reportedly returning from a wedding in the Gao region when they were attacked, not by armed groups, but allegedly by the Malian army and allied Russian mercenaries of the Wagner group….
