The claim was made by the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a separatist Tuareg rebel alliance fighting against the Malian government in the region.

The FLA accused Malian forces and Wagner mercenaries of intercepting two passenger vehicles traveling from Gao to Algeria and killing those on board, including women and children.

Army chief Gen. Oumar Diarra dismissed the allegations as “unfounded,” calling them part of a disinformation campaign “relayed by terrorist networks, allies, and sponsors.”

For years, Mali has battled both Tuareg separatists seeking an independent state in the north and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

After military coups in 2020 and 2021, the ruling junta hired Russian Wagner mercenaries to bolster security.

However, both Malian forces and Wagner fighters have frequently been accused by rights groups of committing atrocities against civilians, which they deny.

Last month, Mali, along with Burkina Faso and Niger—also under military rule—quit the West African regional bloc ECOWAS after rejecting demands to restore civilian governance.

The departure dealt a significant blow to the 50-year-old alliance.

Mali’s military rulers have also severed ties with former colonial power France, whose troops left in 2022 after a decade-long counterinsurgency campaign.

The following year, the junta expelled all 12,000 UN peacekeepers from the country.

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Niger has been a key Western ally in the fight against Islamist militants in West Africa. Military officers announced to have overthrown the government of President Mohamed Bazoum and detained him.

The US and France, the former colonial power, both have military bases in the uranium-rich country.

The unverified voice message from Mr Prigozhin appeared on a Telegram app channel associated with the group, saying the takeover was long overdue.

According to the Reuters news agency, the speaker had the same distinctive intonation and turn of phrase in Russian as the Wagner boss.

“What happened in Niger is nothing more than the struggle of the people of Niger against colonisers, who tried to impose their own rules of life,” AFP news agency quotes him as saying.

“In order to maintain their actual slave system in the territories of these states, they deploy various foreign missions, which number tens of thousands of soldiers.”

He went on to hail the “effectiveness” of Wagner, explaining a thousand of its fighters “are able to restore order and destroy terrorists, preventing them from harming the civilian population”, AFP reports.

The release of voice message coincided with the publication on Telegram of photographs showing Mr Prigozhin in St Petersburg at the Africa-Russia summit.

He was seen shaking hands with Ambassador Freddy Mapouka, a senior official in the Central African Republic (CAR).

It is the first confirmed sighting of Mr Prigozhin in Russia since Wagner’s failed mutiny in June.

Wagner has a security contract in CAR and through its network of companies allegedly trades there in conflict minerals and timber, as well as making beer and vodka.

The shadowy mercenary group is also in Mali, where it is believed to have about 1,000 soldiers and where its troops have been accused of carrying out atrocities.

Their deployment in December 2021 had followed a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Mali’s military regime and France, prompting the former colonial power to withdraw its counter-terror troops.

According to Reuters, the Wagner boss was heard in a video released earlier this month telling his men, now exiled to Belarus, that they should gather their strength for a “new journey to Africa”.

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