According to Human Rights Watch: "Human Rights Watch documented nine incidents that followed a similar modus operandi: dozens of security force members, travelling on both motorcycles and vehicles, mounted large operations on local market days. After surrounding scores of people who were conducting business at the market, the security force members detained up to 14 men and allegedly executed them, according to witnesses who found their bodies hours later, usually along the side of a road. Witnesses to these incidents described members of the security forces being accompanied by a few men in civilian dress whose faces were completely covered and who ‘indexed’ or identified, the men who were detained and later allegedly executed. The operations described by the witnesses occurred in the administrative communes of Arbinda, Tongomayel, Koutougou and, in one case, Baraboulé, and were: the alleged execution [...] of 15 men and an adolescent in two incidents in Demtou in November and December [2018]; [...] Human Rights Watch spoke with two witnesses to two incidents in Demtou village. They described how in late November or early December, a total of 15 Peuhl were allegedly detained and later executed, including one adolescent and two men over 70 years-old. A witness said: The problem is that Jihadists come all the time, preach of their project, and then the army detentions and kills us, like it’s our fault. The first time the soldiers killed us was in late November, on a Friday. They detained eight people, early morning, as they were eating or going to work. I saw the men being taken away in a convoy of four pick-ups, with the soldiers seated back-to-back, and about 12 motorcycles. At around 9 a.m. we were called by villagers who live near Pogol-Diame, a few kilometers away, saying their bodies were there. I know all of those killed – they were from 17 to 32-yearsold. A week later, they came again, on a Thursday, same style. This time they took seven including Mousa and Boureima, both in their 70’s. We found their bodies later that day, separated by 100 meters, shot in the head. Some dug their graves while I was put in charge of putting fabric over their heads so that we could give them a proper burial." [...] 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." ^[+]