According to Human Rights Watch: "Three people with knowledge of the killing on October 21, 2018 of a 78-year-old local chief from Gaskinde village, 30 kilometers north of Arbinda, said they believed he had been killed by policemen based in Arbinda Commune after being stopped on his way to attend a local government meeting in Dori. Human Rights Watch did not speak with a first-hand witness to the detention, however a witness to the man’s burial said, “I was called soon after he had been detained by a friend who said “your [relationship withheld], was detained at a checkpoint near Arbinda by policemen. At 11 a.m. I received a call saying he and a few other men had been found dead seven kilometers south of Gaskinde. He had been shot twice in the head and multiple times in his stomach; his right arm had been torn apart. There, I saw two other bodies, but I don’t know who they were." [...] Witnesses to all but one of the incidents described above said the alleged perpetrators were dressed in dark yellow and brown camouflage uniforms which, as noted, is worn by members of both the gendarmerie and army. “It can be confusing; the gendarmerie and the army use the same uniform in some theaters of operation,” one security force officer noted." However, on the basis of interviews with the witnesses, security sources, and community leaders representing the major ethnic groups present in Soum Province, Human Rights Watch believes the majority of incidents described above were perpetrated by a detachment of gendarmes who, in August 2018, had been deployed to the town of Arbinda to respond to the growing number of armed Islamist attacks, including many of those which targeted civilians and are described above." ^[+]