According to Human Rights Watch: "The government of Mali should urgently conduct credible investigations into abuses against suspects its army detained during a major military operation against armed Islamist groups, Human Rights Watch said. The army high command should suspend officers implicated in abuse pending investigations and ensure that all detainees are treated humanely and are promptly turned over to government gendarmes. The investigations should include the deaths in detention of 27 men and the severe torture of two others in February, March, and April 2018 during Operation Dambe, a major offensive that ramped up in early 2018 in the Mopti region of Central Mali. [...] Human Rights Watch interviewed 14 men on April 5, who had been arrested in the Mopti region during military operations on March 8 and 12. Five of the detainees alleged that they were mistreated while in army custody, two of them severely. Numerous deep gashes and scars covering their backs, abdomens, and legs were clearly visible during the interviews, one of which was in a clinic where the most severely injured detainee was still receiving medical attention. A 57-year-old herder described being tortured by the soldiers. He said that at around 8 a.m. on March 12, six soldiers arrested him, his son, and a nephew at their home. The soldiers ordered them to walk to a spot outside the village, where he was blindfolded, and his hands and feet bound. He was severely beaten there for about 40 minutes. “One soldier held my head while another held my feet. The third began striking me with a machete on my back again and again until I lost consciousness.” Another man, 42, detained in the same operation, was beaten with gun butts and a machete, and threatened with death: “They interrogated me while beating me and one threatened to slit my throat if I didn’t talk.”" ^[+]