The International Criminal Court has been asked to review a confidential legal report asserting that the Russia-linked Wagner Group has committed war crimes by spreading images of apparent atrocities in West Africa on social media, including ones alluding to cannibalism, according to the brief seen exclusively by The Associated Press (AP) news agency.

In the videos, men in military uniform are shown butchering corpses of what appear to be civilians with machetes, hacking out organs and posing with severed limbs. One fighter says he is about to eat someone’s liver. Another says he is trying to remove their heart, AP reports.

Military governments in the Sahel battle extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Daesh group.

Turning away from Western allies like the United States and France, the governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have instead embraced Russia and its mercenary fighters as partners in offensives.

Social media offers a window into the alleged horrors that often occur in remote areas with little or no oversight from governments or outside observers.

Experts say the images, while difficult to verify, could serve as evidence of war crimes. The confidential brief to the ICC goes further, arguing that the act of circulating the images on social media could constitute a war crime, too. It is the first such argument made to the international court.

Probe urged

“Wagner has deftly leveraged information and communications technologies to cultivate and promote its global brand as ruthless mercenaries. Their Telegram network in particular, which depicts their conduct across the Sahel, serves as a proud public display of their brutality,” said Lindsay Freeman, director of the Technology, Law & Policy program at the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law.

Under the Rome Statute that created the ICC, the violation of personal dignity, mainly through humiliating and degrading treatment, constitutes a war crime.

Legal experts from UC Berkeley, who submitted the brief to the ICC last year, argue that such treatment could include Wagner’s alleged weaponization of social media.

“The online distribution of these images could constitute the war crime of outrages on personal dignity and the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts for psychologically terrorizing the civilian population,” Freeman said.

She said there is legal precedent in some European courts for charging the war crime of outrages on personal dignity based predominantly on social media evidence.

The brief asks the ICC to investigate individuals with Wagner and the governments of Mali and Russia for alleged abuses in northern and central Mali between December 2021 and July 2024, including extrajudicial killings, torture, mutilation and cannibalism.

Sahel’s terrorism toll

It also asks the court to investigate crimes “committed through the internet, which are inextricably linked to the physical crimes and add a new dimension of harm to an extended group of victims.”

The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC said their investigations have focused on alleged war crimes committed since January 2012, when insurgents seized communities in Mali's northern regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.

The ICC told the AP it could not comment on the brief but said it was aware of "various reports of alleged massive human rights violations in other parts of Mali,” adding that it “follows closely the situation.”

Wagner did not respond to questions about the videos.

As the world largely focuses on wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, the Sahel has become the deadliest place on earth for extremism. Half of the world’s nearly 8,000 victims of terrorism were killed across the territory last year, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, which compiles yearly data.

While the U.S. and other Western powers withdraw from the region, Russia has taken advantage, expanding military cooperation with several African nations via Wagner, the private security company.

Wagner withdrawal

The network of mercenaries and businesses is closely linked to Russia’s intelligence and military, and the U.S. State Department has described it as “a transnational criminal organization.”

Since Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in 2023, Moscow has been developing a new organization, the Africa Corps, as a rival force under direct command of Russian authorities.

Earlier this month, Wagner announced its withdrawal from Mali, declaring “mission accomplished” in a Telegram post.

In a separate Telegram post, Africa Corps said it is staying. In Mali, about 2,000 Russian mercenaries are fighting alongside the country’s armed forces, according to U.S. officials. It is unclear how many have been with Wagner or are with the Africa Corps.

Both the Russian mercenaries and local military allies have shared bloody imagery on social media to claim battlefield wins, observers say.