Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said that its fighters had recovered the bodies of its mercenaries killed in a July battle with Tuareg rebels and Islamists during a desert sandstorm in Mali.

Mali, where military authorities seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, is battling a years-long Islamist insurgency.

Wagner said in July that it took heavy losses in the battle but has given few details.

“An operation was successfully completed to return the bodies of our brothers, who in July 2024 heroically took up the fight with Islamists many times outnumbered,” Wagner said in a rare statement on Telegram late on Tuesday.

The loss of the battle in July illustrated the dangers faced by Russian mercenary forces working for military juntas, which are struggling to contain separatists and powerful offshoots of Islamic State and Al Qaeda across the arid Sahel region in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Wagner said its fighters had passed through a desert area near Tinzaouaten in north Mali that was “teeming with Azawad militants.”

“The bodies of our fallen brothers will return to the homeland,” Wagner said. “We do not leave our own, and all of them – dead or alive – will be returned home.” 

(Reuters/NAN)